


Harry Potter and the Secret Prophecy

by foxinthestars



Series: Fox in the Stars' Harry Potter A/U [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blanket Permission, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-01-07
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 124,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinthestars/pseuds/foxinthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU reenvisioning of book 5, originally posted on FF.net beginning in 2005. With Voldemort back Harry wants to pull his weight in the fight, but Sirius is keeping Voldemort's goal a secret, and the Ministry makes yet more trouble.  Follows (but does not require) "Hand-me-Downs".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mrs. Figg's Sugar Biscuits

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who wants to use my work as a basis for their own fanfic, fanart, podfic, translation, etc. has my permission to do so. Just credit me as appropriate.

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

* * *

  
 _A few notes before we start..._

 _As I am fond of describing myself, I am, while a big Harry Potter fan, a "conscientious objector" to canon book 5,_   
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix   
_. No matter how I try to spin it in my mind, I just don't think that it was the right direction to take the story, and as I began thinking through everything I objected to about it, I started having ideas about how I would have done it instead, and it all snowballed until I had to write it._

 _That said, since it is an Alternate Universe Remix, please assume that any place where my story conflicts with_ OotP _is an intentional change, not a mistake. Please note also that I have not read_ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince _, nor do I have any plans to, so conflicts with it are, to me, a non-issue. Most of you probably don't need to be told "don't nitpick non-applicable canon with an A/U story," but having done A/U's before in other fandoms, it's happened enough times, let me tell you._

 _In creating my own A/U here, I have done my best to impose a policy on myself of a clean split from canon immediately after_ Goblet of Fire _(so canon nitpicks prior to book 5 are fair game and indeed appreciated). However, there is one thing that I find I must reach back to change..._

 _In_   
Prisoner of Azkaban   
_, when Prof. Trelawney delivers her prophecy, rather than what was described in the book, in my alternate universe she went strangely rigid with a fixed, far-away focus in her eyes, then stood up so suddenly that she knocked over her pouf and intoned the following verse:_

Full moon's eye beholds disaster.  
Dark Lord's servant rejoins his master.  
Wolf of silver, dog of black,  
Hidden claws in the Shrieking Shack.  
Promise remembered, promises break,  
Found too late revenge to take.  
The Child shall not regret this night,  
But three turns come before the light:  
Turns of rescue, turns of pain.  
Know the Dark Lord comes again.

 _Then she came to herself, attempted to sit back down without realising the pouf had moved, and fell on her butt._

 _There are a few reasons for this change, the major one being that my plans for this book 5 "remix" include a rewritten Prophecy, a version that came to me in verse. It would be strange if Prof. Trelawney's prophetic trances rhymed sometimes but not all the time, but I also find that this revised prediction fits my plans better in general..._

 _Also should mention that my story_ Hand-me-Downs _is a prequel to this. Set in the same A/U from Remus Lupin's point of view, it leads directly into_ Secret Prophecy _chronologically. It's **not required** reading going into this story, although I do recommend it just because I'm very proud of it and think it's quite good._

 _That's all I have to say for now, so read on the A/U Remix and enjoy!_

* * *

 **Chapter One  
 _Mrs. Figg's Sugar Biscuits_**

Harry Potter lay on his back in his bed, in the smallest bedroom of the Dursley house at Number Four, Privet Drive in Little Whinging, where he lived on summer holidays away from school. Harry was a thin boy, somewhat tall now that he was at the age for growth spurts, and he had wild black hair that would never lie flat no matter how much trimming and combing it got. He wore round, taped glasses, and behind and above them were his most striking features: brilliant green eyes; and a scar on his forehead, shaped like a lightning bolt. For the moment, he had set everything aside and was listening carefully to the sounds of his Aunt and Uncle moving about the house, waiting to hear them go safely off to bed.

Harry had scarcely been outside his room in weeks. Uncle Vernon never looked in on him, and Aunt Petunia only rarely did. Usually he only saw her hand as she reached through the cat-flap they had installed in his bedroom door. She would put in a bowl of cold tinned soup at mealtimes, pick up the dirty bowl again a half-hour later, and every evening take away the narrow newspaper bags that they made him put his garbage in because those bags would fit through the cat-flap. He knew they would be getting ready for bed soon now, because Aunt Petunia had just taken away the bag.

Maybe, he thought, it was better this way, if they just shut him up in this space all to himself. With the Dursleys never looking in, he could spread his school things around the room and feel a little bit like he was still at school, still in the world the Dursleys hated passionately but that Harry called home: the world of Magic, where Witches and Wizards lived.

The Dursleys were Muggles — the wizard name for non-magical people — but Harry Potter was a young wizard, and except for summer holidays, he lived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the finest magic school in the world. Where he had been doing his summer homework, it wasn't ruled paper and pencils sitting out, but rolls of parchment and inkpots and quills. His textbooks had names like The Standard Book of Spells in numbered volumes by grade, Intermediate Transfiguration, and Unfogging the Future. Like most boys, he also had books about his favorite sport, but unlike most boys, that sport for Harry was Quidditch, a game in which the players flew on broomsticks and played with four balls of various types, all but one of which moved on its own. With Aunt Petunia looking in so rarely, he had dared to leave his school uniform laying out — long black robes and a pointed hat, with a necktie and hatkerchief in red-and-gold, the colors of his school House, Griffindor. Even the photo of his long-dead parents that Harry kept by his bedside wasn't a still Muggle photo; his mother and father, James and Lily Potter, moved around in the photo-frame like live people viewed through a window. Out of the corner of his eye Harry often saw them chatting with each other, and they beamed and waved whenever he looked at them.

He only wished there was a way to stay at Hogwarts over the summer. If they held classes then, he knew that Hermione Granger, one of his closest friends, would be there, too — she never missed a chance to study. His best friend Ron Weasley, however, would probably prefer a vacation from classes, to spend the holiday at "the Burrow," his family's cosy home where all of them were wizards.

Harry agreed that a summer at the Weasleys' would be more fun than a summer of class, but anything would be better than being here with the Dursleys; they had always hated wizards and therefore hated Harry. They had raised him since he was a baby and his parents had died — killed by a wizard so evil and fearful that most magical people wouldn't dare speak his name — and Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their son Dudley had been horrible to Harry for as long as he remembered. He got only cold tinned soup or scraps to eat, only Dudley's outsize castoffs to wear, and until he had become school-age, his "room" had been the spider-infested cupboard under the stairs.

He had his own room now, but other than that, the Dursleys somehow managed to be worse every summer. This year, he had scarcely been home for a week when he had tried to look in on the television news. Uncle Vernon had been watching it anyway, and Harry had done his best to be quiet and inconspicuous, but suddenly his uncle had demanded to know what he wanted to see the news for. "Isn't natural! Goodness knows Dudley couldn't care less what's going on, and what's it matter to _your_ kind, anyway?" Aunt Petunia had then ordered him up to his room—"And stay there until we tell you!" A few days later when he had ventured out, he had found that pronouncement indeed in effect until his Aunt and Uncle said otherwise, and now it had been over a month and they still hadn't.

So for weeks, practically his only sights of Privet Drive had been through his window, but then, the white fences and manicured lawns weren't very interesting to him. There was no reason he would want to see Uncle Vernon set off in the car for the office at his drill-making firm, or Aunt Petunia walking along the street, craning her long neck over all the neighbors' fences so she could tell smug gossip about what she'd seen. The sight of Dudley coming and going with his increasingly-thuglike gang of friends — one of the older ones had a car now — only made Harry throw himself back onto the bed in disgust.

The only thing worse than that had been the time Mrs. Figg, the batty old cat lady from two streets over, had come walking along. She had noticed Harry in the window and not long afterward had come over and insisted on seeing him. Her visit was the one time in the past month that he had been allowed out of his room, but that was no prize when it meant being stuffed with Mrs. Figg's lemony-baking-powder flavored sugar biscuits and something she called zucchini bread — it tasted to Harry like slices of foam rubber with a hint of sweetness too weak to drown out the cabbage-and-catbox scent of her house that lingered on it. Mrs. Figg had fetched a photo-album from her house and had made Harry look at page after page of snaps of her newest cat, Little Miss Footie-Socks, "but you can just call her Soxie, she doesn't mind it a bit, bless her heart..." She had needled Harry with questions about school that were doubly awkward under Aunt Petunia's watchful eye, and he had babbled out a story about a summer assignment for St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys, which the Dursleys claimed was the name of his school. He had to do "ten feet of parch— er, ten reams of paper," he had said, tracing the history of the British correctional system with specific examples, and when Mrs. Figg had asked if he could bring it by for her to read, he had rushed to tell her that he had to send it in by post as soon as it was done, so no, sorry, he couldn't. Otherwise, he was sure that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would make him actually write such a paper to show Mrs. Figg. He thought angrily to himself that the Dursleys would have gotten a whole chapter.

But the part of that visit he couldn't get out of his mind was when Aunt Petunia had gone to answer the phone and Mrs. Figg had leaned over to him. "By the way, Harry," she had whispered, "have you been seeing a great black dog about?" Harry was still shocked by that because such a dog might have been the only family he had left. His godfather, Sirius Black, was an Animagus: a wizard who could transform himself into an animal, in Sirius's case a huge black dog. In a way Harry would have been overjoyed if Sirius were that close, but he had more reason to be frightened by the thought. Sirius was a fugitive who had been framed for a terrible crime and spent twelve harrowing years in the wizard prison Azkaban. Now he had been sentenced to the worst death imaginable if the Ministry of Magic caught him, so Harry said no, he hadn't seen any dogs about, and he should really get back to that paper, if Mrs. Figg would excuse him...

With that, he had run back up to his room, and he'd been there ever since. Now if he was looking out the window and happened to see Mrs. Figg, he ducked out of sight.

All that just for wanting to see the news and not saying why! He couldn't tell the Dursleys why; the reason was Voldemort, the evil wizard whose very name was so feared, who had killed Harry's parents, who had lost his powers when he tried to kill baby Harry but only left him with the lightning-scar on his forehead, whose defeat every Wizard and Witch had celebrated that night.

Harry knew something very few others, even in the Magical world, knew: Voldemort was back.

At last he heard the flick of his Aunt and Uncle's bedroom lights switching off. Still he waited until he heard Uncle Vernon snoring before he knew that it was safe. He got up on his knees and opened his window, letting the cool night air flow in, but what he was looking for were owls.

Presently a brown spotted post-owl flew into the now-open window with a newspaper in its talons — the Wizard newspaper, The Daily Prophet. The owl dropped the paper on Harry's bed and held out its leg where it wore a little pouch. Harry dropped a few copper knuts into the pouch to pay for the paper, then the owl hooted politely and took off out the window again.

Harry unfolded the paper and looked at the front page, filled with moving photos. The headline read "Goblins Want Ministry Out of Setting Rates;" There was a photo of one of the goblins who ran Gringotts, the wizard bank, shaking a long finger at Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in his lime-green bowler hat and pinstriped suit. If that was the biggest story of the day, then they didn't know of anything Voldemort had done, but that didn't mean much. The Ministry and the Daily Prophet had spent most of the past year trying to make Harry look unbalanced. Once they had thought him a hero, but now that Voldemort was back — having returned at the end of the past school year before Harry's very eyes, killing another student, Cedric Diggory, and nearly killing Harry, who barely managed to escape — they refused to believe it. Even when Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, the greatest and most respected wizard in the world as far as Harry was concerned, had told Harry's story to the whole school, Minister Fudge had insisted it couldn't be true. The Daily Prophet had only reluctantly run a story about the tales all the Hogwarts students had come home with; they said that Dumbledore was getting too old, starting to dodder, and thus he'd been drawn into "Potter's hysterical ploys for attention" and seen fit to frighten all their readers' children with stories about "You-Know-Who."

No, Harry thought, Voldemort would have to blow up the Daily Prophet's main office before he would make the headline, and then they might claim it had been someone else. He leafed through, skimming the story titles for anything that might really be Voldemort underneath, but he didn't find anything, so he rolled up the paper, stuffed it through the catflap, and threw himself down on the bed again with a heavy sigh.

Surely Voldemort wasn't just sitting around all summer doing nothing. When Aunt Petunia had first sent him up to his room, he had wanted to see the Muggle news in case they might report anything the wizard news didn't, perhaps a "gas main explosion" where people had seen funny pictures in the smoke — maybe a skull with a snake slithering out its mouth: Voldemort's "Dark Mark" that meant he or his followers, the Death Eaters, had killed someone... But of course, the Dursleys hadn't even let him do that.

He would have thought that his friends would let him know what was going on. Ron's parents, after all, were working with Dumbledore, who was leading the fight against Voldemort just as he had years before. Sirius was with them, too, but Harry was just as glad not to hear from him, in case sending letters might give away his location to the authorities.

But Ron had no excuse — and neither did Hermione, since her letters said she was spending the holiday with Ron's family. Every time they wrote to him, they acted like nothing was wrong. Hermione had already bought _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5_ and was gushing about Protean Charms; Ron said he was getting pretty good at playing Keeper in backyard Quidditch games, although the one time they had gotten Hermione to play hadn't gone so well. All their sunny notes about a holiday at the Burrow made him furious. He had even sent them letters _asking_ if anything more serious was happening, they just ignored the questions. When his birthday packages had arrived from them, full of Chocolate Frogs and broom polish, the notes had just said "Happy 15th, Harry! Enjoy the Frogs; we think there might be some ultra-rare cards in these ones." As if he was interested in Chocolate Frog Cards at a time like this! He had been so angry that he rolled the whole lot of it in worthless Daily Prophet pages and shoved it through the catflap for Aunt Petunia to take out to the bin.

The last time he'd given letters for Ron and Hermione to his own snowy owl, Hedwig, Harry had told her to stay there and pester them until she could bring back some letters where they told him what was going on. That had been a week ago, and now as Harry watched his window, there still wasn't a trace of Hedwig to be seen.

Harry preferred being shut away from the Dursleys, but he was tired of being shut away from the whole world, Magical and Muggle. _If only my room weren't on the second storey_ , he thought, leaning crossed arms on the sill. _If only I was allowed to use magic during holiday!_ If he could, even the dozen-foot drop from the bedroom window would be no problem, but he had already found out in summers past that the Ministry of Magic knew whenever spells were cast around him.

 _What about magical items?_ Harry wondered. At that he turned and looked around the room. It was full of magical items! Some of his textbooks were magical, such as  The Monster Book of Monsters that was tied shut on his shelf, still struggling and growling. There was the Pocket Sneakoscope on his desk that would spin like a top to warn him whenever Aunt Petunia was sneaking about and listening at his door, and even all the wizard pictures here were magical items, and apparently legal...

After all, Harry thought, he had taken greater risks and broken bigger rules than that when he was facing something this important. Surely he should know everything he could about whatever Voldemort might be doing. The really important thing about that law was keeping the magic secret, and he certainly would do everything possible to hide it from all the Muggles of Privet Drive...

Harry resolved to try it, and he tucked his wand into his belt just in case — better to get in trouble with the Ministry of Magic than to get killed if Voldemort or anything else jumped out at him. He crept off the bed, opened his trunk, and took out two of his most prized posessions: his Firebolt, one of the finest racing brooms ever made and the first Christmas gift Sirius had been able to give him; and the silvery Invisibility Cloak that had belonged to his father. He gripped the broomstick and carefully wrapped the Invisibility Cloak around him so that he and the broom would be totally concealed by it, then climbed onto the window sill, leaned out, and kicked off.

The cool night breeze blew over Harry's face and ruffled his hair for the first time in weeks — there was nothing he loved more than flying. He longed to aim the broom toward the moon and simply soar, to make loops and barrel rolls over the entire neighborhood, but this was a time to stay subtle, so he only wheeled around behind the house and put down in the backyard. He crawled into the tight space between Aunt Petunia's lilac bushes and the white picket fence, then shuffled out of the Invisibility Cloak and left it and the Firebolt hidden there as he emerged from the bushes and dusted off his jeans.

As he went out front to the sidewalk, he scanned the sky for owls; if he had broken the law, the Ministry would send letters almost instantly, but now the sky was clear, and with a sigh of relief he set off walking down the street.

He walked for about a block and a half, just enjoying the cool evening, before he even thought about what to do next. News: where could he find a television or radio, or a newspaper? If he walked into town, most of the shops were closed, but maybe he could find a TV or radio playing in a petrol station or something... A newspaper might be easier to find, but if he came to a newspaper-box, he didn't have any Muggle coins to buy one with. He could probably find one in a bin — Uncle Vernon got the paper, but he didn't dare look through the bin in the Dursleys' drive as it would be just like them to notice any tampering and blame Harry for it. He glanced at the ones in the neighbors' yards along the street, but he was passing a house with a light on, so he kept walking and waited for it to go out of sight.

He passed a play park where Dudley's gang had pulled down all but one of the swings and carved crude sayings into the wooden beams of the play castle and the fence. Just beyond that began brick walls that sprang directly up from the edge of the sidewalk, dotted with the darkened windows of small shops and offices, and finally he passed an alley where he saw a skip. That was a fairly concealed place, he thought.

As he started down the alley, a butterscotch tabby cat peered out from behind some piled-up crates. Was it one of Mrs. Figg's cats? She had so many, Harry couldn't keep them straight, and no matter anyway, he thought, as it ran off down the alley. When he got to the skip, he saw a bit of pulp paper sticking out; he pulled it free and squinted at it in the wan light from the faraway streetlamps, but it turned out to be only an advertising circular. He threw it aside and started picking carefully through the bin-bags. Sneaking about like this quickened his heartbeat — especially when the roar and flash of a car's headlamps occasionally passed the alley entrance — but that felt good to him, like the adventures he and his friends often had at Hogwarts.

Finally he found a paper; straining his eyes in the dimness, it looked like the news, and when a car's headlamps flashed by, it was just enough to confirm it. He heard the tyres squeal, then the alley was lit again; Harry just caught the headline — "Local Group Protests Foxhunt Ban Initiative" — before he realised that the headlamps had come upon him this time running backward. The car had reversed back to the alley entrance and stopped there, and Harry looked up and squinted into the light.

"Oy, look what escaped from the zoo!" a voice said, eliciting a chorus of crude laughter. With the lamps glaring on his glasses, Harry couldn't see Dudley and his gang enough to identify them, but he recognised their voices. He just rolled his eyes and turned back to his paper — the worst Dudley could do was hit him, as he'd been doing since he was old enough to aim his fist. How could Harry be afraid of his bullying cousin after looking into Voldemort's cruel, red, slit-pupilled eyes?

"Just let me off, mates; I'll walk the rest of the way once I'm done here," Dudley was saying.

 _Why couldn't those gits just keep driving?_ Harry wondered, hurriedly skimming the news stories. Nothing serious...

"You want a hand, Studley?"

Harry dropped the paper and choked. ' _Studley'?_

"Nah, he's just a little one. I'll take care of him myself." Dudley's broad silhouette started down the alley as the car tore off again, the other boys still whooping and laughing. Harry heard them run down a mailbox a block or so away.

But once they were gone, he turned and faced his cousin with a defiant grin. "'Studley'? Is that what they call you?"

"Have you got a problem with that?" Dudley demanded, threateningly raising one of his thick arms.

"No," Harry said, "I just think 'Dinky Duddydums' fits you better." He was still smiling, but at the same time wished he hadn't left his broomstick back in the Dursleys' yard.

"And what do they call you at that freak school you go to? 'Sparky'?" Dudley demanded. "Is that what _Cedric_ calls you? Or does he call you 'Darling'?"

Harry jumped. _How dare you!_ How dare Dudley, that spoiled brat, make fun of Cedric, who had earned the right to be the hero of the whole school, who had been callously murdered just when his life should have been starting! _But how could he—?_ "How do you know his name?"

"Oh, that wall's not too thick; I hear you carrying on in your sleep all the time," Dudley said. He'd come close enough that Harry could see his face, and he showed a smug grin now that he had the upper hand. "Most of it's hard to make out, but I hear that one a lot: 'Cedric! Cedric, no!'"

"Shut up!" Harry hissed. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"You must go through them fast. Last summer it was 'Sirius! No, don't kill Sirius!' all the time."

That was going too far! If anyone heard Dudley say that, if it got back to the authorities... "Dudley, don't you _ever_ say his name! I mean it!"

"Oh, I guess that one must have been a messy breakup, eh?" To Harry's horror, Dudley cupped his hands around his mouth and sang out "HARRY LOVES SIRIUS!" like a schoolyard taunt, so loudly that it echoed all the way up the alley walls and into the darkening sky.

 _I can make you take me seriously, you—!_ Harry snatched his wand from his belt and pointed it straight at Dudley's face. "When I tell you 'don't say his name,' I mean **don't say it!** " he snarled.

His cousin stood frozen for a moment before finding his voice. "You— You can't scare me with that thing!" Dudley stammered. "I know you're not allowed to use magic here!"

"If you go blabbing Sirius's name around, I don't _care_ what I am and am not allowed to do!" The words were half out of Harry's mouth before he realised how much he meant them.

"You wouldn't! You'd get expelled from your freak school!"

Harry noted with satisfaction that Dudley was on the defensive now, grasping at straws.

"Is that what they teach you there? How to nose around in bins? _Is that what your Dad used to do?_ "

That last jab knocked the smirk off Harry's face completely and sent him into such rage that his wand spit red sparks. "SHUT UP!"

" _Mum always said he was a bum!_ "

The red light of the wand lit both their faces, and Harry viciously locked his eyes with Dudley's. "DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT MY—"

Suddenly, he didn't know why, but Harry could see himself as if in a mirror, see his own face pulled with rage, the red sparks of his wand glinting off his glasses and picking out the scar on his head with their light. What was happening? There was no mirror here...

Then he realised that he was seeing himself through _Dudley's_ eyes — and he was terrifying! The next moment he was surrounded by snatched reflections of himself, as if his head — or was it Dudley's head? — had turned into a carnival house of mirrors. Harry in primary school, leaping on top of a building when Dudley's gang had been chasing him, Harry coming out of his bedroom in the morning with a full head of wild black hair after Aunt Petunia had practically shaved him bald the night before, Harry fighting Uncle Vernon for the owl-borne letters that had turned out to be his acceptance to Hogwarts, Harry's bizarre wizard friends — the Weasleys — bursting into the Dursley home through the fireplace...

Every image would have seemed harmless enough to Harry, but here they reflected fear back at him — Dudley's fear. Dudley was afraid of Harry! That was why he had acted so tough in front of his friends, why he was tormenting Harry now! Dudley had _always_ been afraid of Harry. That had _always_ been why he hit him and picked on him: to prove to himself and anyone watching that he wasn't afraid, but he could never prove that and be done with it because he _was_ afraid, was really utterly terrified...

Harry burst out laughing so hard that he fell back against the skip, catching himself on it with his elbow. After everything, Dudley was just a frightened little brat, and his now-more-desperate protests — "What did you do? I'll hit you, I swear!" — only made him more ridiculous.

But then Harry's laughter began to sound more hollow, feel more hateful; it began to scare even him, and he stopped himself. When he looked up, the air had gone cold. The light from the street was being clouded out. Something was coming, something that sucked all the joy out of everyone it came near... _Dementors?_

"Stop it! Stop it!" Dudley cried.

"I'm not doing it!" Harry told him.

"It was you! I _know_ it was you!"

"It's not me anymore!" Harry glanced back and forth at the two ends of the alley, wand at the ready. He didn't have time for Dudley's blubbering now! They seemed to be coming from the end leading onto the street, _but why would Dementors be—?_

POW!

Harry felt a massive impact and sparks flew before his eyes as Dudley punched him. He hit the ground and half picked himself up from the grubby alley floor before he shook it off enough to see Dudley fleeing back up the alley toward the street and the Dursley house — _Right toward them!_

As Harry looked on in horror, the mouth of the alley closed up with the black shapes of the Dementors' cloaks, and still Dudley ran straight at them " ** _What are you—?_** " — _Muggles can't see them!—_ " _THE OTHER WAY, DUDLEY!_ " Harry screamed. " ** _RUN THE OTHER WAY!_** "

But it was too late. Dudley froze in front of the black shapes, stumbled around blindly for a moment, then collapsed and curled up quivering on the pavement.

The other end of the alley was still open. Harry could just make a run for it, but then what would the Dementors do to Dudley? Would they drive him insane? Would they "Kiss" him and suck out his soul — as they would do to Sirius if they caught him? Harry couldn't just leave his cousin, and he knew the spell to save him. All it would take was one happy memory to summon his Patronus, a magical guardian that would chase the Dementors away.

Harry pointed his wand at them. _"Expecto Patronum!"_ His mind was empty; only a little silver whisp came out of his wand. _Think of something happy..._ But whenever he tried, the dismal aura of the Dementors turned it into something bad. Birthday presents — he'd been angry and thrown them away; his friends wouldn't answer his questions; they were shutting him out... Still he kept his wand pointed at the Dementors and walked determinedly toward Dudley, toward them, saying the spell over and over... _"Expecto Patronum!"_ Another pale whisp. _"Expecto Patronum!"_ Nothing.

When he'd found out he had a Godfather, that he still had some family — but then later that evening, he had thought that Sirius was going to be killed, going to have his soul devoured. Somehow Harry had saved him, but in front of the Dementors, it was so hard to remember it... _"Expecto Patronum!"_ His friends at Hogwarts: Ron, Hermione — Ron's little sister Ginny laying motionless on the floor as Voldemort stood over her laughing, Hermione collapsing as Harry had tried this same spell against an advancing crowd of Dementors, and then as now, what had come out of his wand wasn't enough... He knew he had saved them those times, too, but he couldn't remember it! _"Expecto Patronum!"_

He reached Dudley and collapsed over him, clinging even to his cousin's blubbery cowering shape. He was now close enough to hear the rattling breaths inside the Dementors' hoods and feel their putrid clamminess closing in. He could barely see anything except the horrible memories they brought swirling around his head. He was clutching Cedric's lifeless body, _Couldn't save him..._

 _"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"_ He'd cast this spell before, why couldn't he do it now? _I can't do it..._

He heard the rushing sound and saw the green flash of the curse that had killed Cedric, the same curse that had killed his father. Now he could hear his mother screaming in his head, clutching the side of his crib as Voldemort bore down on her—

 _"No, please, not Harry!"_

 _" **Stand aside, girl!** "_

 _"No! Not Harry! Have mercy, please, not my baby!"_

 _I couldn't save her!_ Harry couldn't even tell where the Dementors were to point his wand at them anymore. He hugged Dudley in the dark — _can't save him!_ — as with another green flash his mother collapsed against his crib, as Sirius and Hermione fell to the ground surrounded by Dementors, as the most terrible moments of his life, the moments when all had seemed lost, crowded in on him with the happy endings that had gotten him through them all messily chopped off and missing.

Harry's voice froze in his throat; he tried to say the words of the spell again, but he couldn't even make them come out. _I can't do it... I can't save Dudley... I can't help anybody..._ His head was spinning; he was about to faint. All he could do was let out a pitiful moan and crush his face into Dudley's fleshy shoulder as the Dementors leaned over him. One of them was reaching for its hood, to lower it for the Kiss...

But then they froze. Harry heard a crisp pattering sound; he felt a light, hard something strike him once on the back, again just above his ear. He heard more of the things hitting the Dementors' cloaks, and whatever the projectiles were, the Dementors shrank back from them. Harry felt the cloying presence lifting, and he raised his head. White discs flew at his attackers, and a familiar voice was shouting from behind Harry...

" _Get out of here! Run along! Scat! Go home! You lot don't belong here! Don't **make** me summon my Patronus!_ "

The Dementors retreated out of the alley and melted away into the light of the streetlamps. Harry at last disentangled himself from Dudley and tried to stand, but he fell to his knees again. His mind had been blasted bare.

"Now, careful there, Harry sweetheart," said the familiar voice. Soft footsteps came up beside him, and someone handed him something: a white disc of the same kind as the ones now littering the alley. "Eat that, it'll help."

Harry heard the footsteps shuffle around behind him toward Dudley. He pushed the object toward his face and bit down on it so numbly that crumbs fell out of his mouth. It was a biscuit; its texture was brittle and sandy. As he slowly chewed it, it tasted sweet on top, but dry and lemony, baking powdery, with perhaps just a hint as if it had absorbed the scent from boiling cabbages...

The recognition suddenly brought him to himself, and Harry whipped around in surprise at the old lady who was now trying to coax Dudley up from the ground.

" ** _MRS. FIGG!_** "

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Two: Aunt Petunia's Heel**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter One_

Thus begins my rewrite of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the way I think it should have been.

I've had at times some trepidation about this project, like to the extent that it just retraces the same ground as the original, is it really worth doing? But for one reason and another, I have to write it, so something that has to be done is worth doing by definition, now, isn't it? Plus, there are many _major_ changes in the works, such that I have confidence you will find this all worth it in the end.

However, I have enacted a policy of not looking at canon book 5 anymore, to force myself to avoid as much direct mimickry as possible and force myself to do more original work; I think it's better that way. I'm even, at least on a working basis, changing the title. Still, I am working from my memories of the book. I'm keeping many basic situations that I liked, such as the Dementors showing up in Little Whinging, and I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice Dudley's bit about "who was Cedric, your boyfriend"?

Actually in mine he ended up doing that one worse; I kind of wish he hadn't, but there it was, and it's Dudley, so he said it... (And I don't want to hear any gripes about adult/child 'shipping and/or incest issues just because Dudley's an ignorant prat, okay? Can we all just be more mature than that? Thanks, I knew we could.) Although I do find it ironic-yet-sweet how out-of-touch Dudley was with the actual issue. "Harry Loves Sirius" is the truth, although not the way Dudley thought, and in fact the trouble was that it was _so_ true and Harry was being protective. (I think the godfather/godson relationship between them is just so sweet! ) Further to that, thanks to Kati for pointing out that early in book 4, Harry actually does mention Sirius to the Dursleys by name; however, I thought I could still get away with this scene

I'm also aware that "zucchini" is not a good British word (I believe in England they're called "courgettes"), but I just had to leave that in for personal reasons of my own...

I spent most of this chapter struggling to get my head above exposition. Not good for the purposes of a narrative hook, but I'm trying to capture the feel of an HP novel, and every one of them does start out mired in exposition to make picking that one up cold fairly feasible, so I have an excuse, and it's mostly out of the way now. Once that was done, I started having fun, and I hope you did, too.

  



	2. Aunt Petunia's Heel

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Two  
 _Aunt Petunia's Heel_**

"It's 'Miss,' Dear," she said.

"Huh?" Harry blinked at her in the dim light.

"It's 'Miss Figg,' not 'Mrs.' Vernon and Petunia don't think it respectable to be an old maid, but that's what I properly am."

Harry couldn't say that he was surprised to hear it. For as long as he'd known Miss Figg, she had always been dressed just as she was now: in a housecoat, hairnet, and tartan carpet slippers. Tins of catfood clanked in the bag on her arm. The butterscotch tabby cat he'd seen earlier was back, rubbing itself against her ankles. All these years she had lived two streets away, had been his dreaded babysitter, and now it turned out... "You've been a witch all along?"

"I'm sorry I had to make such nuisance of myself," she said. "You know I wouldn't have gotten to babysit you if you had enjoyed my company, and if Vernon and Petunia knew about me, well..."

Harry's mind was still turning. So when she had whispered to him about seeing a great black dog, she had been trying to clue him in that she was on his side, that she was Sirius's friend! He had just been too used to thinking of her as the batty old cat lady to realise that she might be something more. Now that he thought of it, he remembered Dumbledore talking about "the old crowd" and mentioning "Arabella Figg"...

"Could you lend a hand here, Harry dear?" She was tugging at Dudley's arm, but he seemed to want to stay curled up on the ground. Harry took the other arm over his shoulders, and he and Miss Figg at last hauled Dudley upright. They both staggered under his immense weight, but nonetheless they started off toward the Dursley house with him shuffling his feet along between them.

"What's going on?" Harry asked. "What were those Dementors doing here?"

"I haven't the foggiest. Dear me, they must have finally gone over, but I never would have expected them to pop up like this! Thank heavens Tibbles caught scent of them in time to raise me."

The tabby cat had run a little further down the sidewalk and meowed back at them.

"Yes, you. You're my hero," Miss Figg told it.

"But Vol-"

"Harry, not here!"

"You-Know-Who," Harry corrected himself, "what's he been doing?"

"Nothing... nothing straight out," she said. "The Order's been taking care of it."

"'The Order'?"

"The Order of the Phoenix, the Old Crowd," Miss Figg whispered, huffing and puffing as she helped lug Dudley. " _He_ started up the Death Eaters again, so Albus started up the Order again, too. Somebody's got to do something."

"Yeah..." There was so much Harry wanted to talk about and ask her about, he wished he had hours to do it, but already he could make out the Dursley house in the distance. He hardly knew where to begin, and besides, pulling his cousin along took most of the breath he would need to talk. He didn't think of a first thing to say until they were bringing Dudley up the drive and Miss Figg made straight for the Dursleys' front door. "Can't we just sneak in?" he whispered.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, it's better this way," she said. "Poor Dudley needs his parents, and better to have it out with Vernon and Petunia and be done with it..."

Harry's stomach sank. He looked around as she reached for the doorbell - was that a little light he saw in the living room window? Did he hear a cry and see it jump when the bell rang? He must have, because Aunt Petunia opened the door only seconds later. She was in her own housecoat, had her hair up in curlers, and was holding a penlight in her teeth. " _Th_ udley!" she cried; the penlight got in the way of the D sound before falling from her mouth.

"Good evening, Petunia," Miss Figg said, snapping back into her usual character as she shoved Dudley through the door. "I'm afraid your boys had quite a bad scare. Almost run down by a bus, poor darlings; I don't know where they find those mad drivers..."

Harry switched on the living room light as Miss Figg led Dudley toward the dining room table and Aunt Petunia followed along with an arm around him fretting "Oh, Duddy Dumpling!" In the light, Harry saw that one of the couch-cushions was crooked, and a corner of pulp-paper poked out from under it. The bits of large type sticking out were the ends of two lines: "-INISTRY," "-ATES," and below that a fragment of _moving_ picture: a white-gloved hand smoothed a man's hair, then replaced a lime green bowler hat atop it. Harry took a step and accidentally put his sneaker down on the penlight. _Aunt Petunia snuck down here to read my Daily Prophet?_

"Harry!" Miss Figg called shrilly.

As he ran into the dining room, he heard Uncle Vernon's footsteps thundering down the stairs. "WHAT IN BLAZES IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?"

Dudley was huddled silently in a chair; Petunia jumped, but Miss Figg went right on chattering. "-Or any hot cocoa maybe? Not the diet kind, I mean good hot cocoa. Goodness knows no boy needs to be on a diet when he's been through such a thing, poor little Dudley dear..." To Harry's amazement, she shuffled over and started banging around the Dursleys' kitchen, setting a saucepan on the stove and getting the milk out of the refridgerator before rummaging through the cabinets. "Oh, you have marshmallows, that's good..."

Petunia seemed to just realise what Miss Figg was doing and dashed over to stop her as Vernon burst in, red in the face, and caught sight of Harry. " ** _YOU!_** "

"Vernon, dear, you like hot cocoa, don't you?"

He whipped around in shock to find Miss Figg standing there. "Well, yes, I... What are you-?"

"Poor Dudley and Harry almost got hit in the street..."

Harry's uncle shot a venomous glance that told him he was still a suspect.

"They've had a bad scare, but you give them some chocolate and biscuits and send them to bed and they'll be just fine," Miss Figg said.

"Yes, we'll do that," Vernon said. He took Miss Figg by the arm and started dragging her toward the door. Petunia had taken over in the kitchen and was stirring the saucepan.

"You mind what I tell you now," Miss Figg insisted. "Those boys need sweets: good chocolates, home-made nummies..."

"Yes, yes..."

Harry watched in horror as Vernon pushed her out the door and struggled to take leave of her. He was up against all three of the Dursleys at once, his only friend against them was being snatched away before his eyes, and he didn't dare say a thing...

After spitting out "Good night, Mrs. Figg!" no less than four times in a row, Vernon at last slammed the door behind her and stormed back to the table. He fixed Harry with a murderous, scarlet-faced glare. "What happened, you little monster? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON?"

"Nothing!" Harry insisted. "It wasn't me! We were attacked!"

" ** _LIAR!_** "

"I _couldn't_ do that!" he shouted back, pointing at Dudley's hunched, shivering form. "We were attacked by Dementors!"

Aunt Petunia gasped; her stirring spoon rang against the kitchen's white tile floor.

" _WHAT IN THE RUDDY HELL IS A DEMENTOR?_ " Vernon bellowed.

"They guard the wizard pris-" Harry began.

But Aunt Petunia interrupted, seeming not to have even heard him. "They kill happiness," she said into her hand. "They eat people's souls."

Harry and Uncle Vernon both turned to stare at her. In a second she remembered herself, ran for another spoon, and went back to stirring the saucepan. She hunched over and stared into it as if nothing else in the world existed.

"That is what they do," Harry said. "They're supposed to be prison guards; they're not supposed to be here."

"Oh, so now you're on the run from the magical coppers, are you?"

"No, I..." He trailed off. Could the Dementors have been chasing Sirius? They had appeared just after Dudley shouted his name out to the whole world! Surely Miss Figg would have said something... wouldn't she? Or would she have wanted to spare him thinking Sirius was in trouble...?

" _Then you tell me what's- **AAARGH!**_ "

Uncle Vernon gave a scream of vexation as an owl swooped in from the living room and wheeled once around the ceiling, dropping an envelope onto the table before flying out again. He slammed his hand down on the envelope before Harry could reach it, but the corner Harry could see between his Uncle's fingers was enough to make his insides go cold. It was from the Ministry's Improper Use of Magic Office.

Vernon tore the envelope open so savagely that he took a chunk out of the enclosed parchment and read over it, his eyes switching wildly from side to side. "You're telling me it wasn't you? Well, your Ministry says otherwise," he shouted, waving the letter in Harry's face. "They say you were casting spells out there tonight!"

"I didn't!" Harry started, grabbing for the parchment. All he'd done was try the Patronus Charm - try to _help_ \- and it hadn't worked. Were those little silver whisps enough for the Ministry to...? "Let me see that!"

"Fine!" Vernon threw the parchment at him.

Harry snatched it. He couldn't bear to read the whole thing, only skimmed over it, his eyes catching on the words that would tell him what it meant.

". . . Patronus Charm . . . second offense . . . in accordance with . . . must inform you that _you are hereby expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_. . . ."

He slumped in his chair. Uncle Vernon was still shouting at him, but he didn't bother to listen; it didn't matter. If he was expelled from Hogwarts, nothing mattered. He let his head fall onto his hand and seized a fistful of his hair.

"So you admit it, do you?" Uncle Vernon demanded.

Harry barely noticed Aunt Petunia setting mugs of hot cocoa on the table - even one next to Harry - and coaxing Dudley to drink some. "I was... I was trying to help..."

"Trying to help my son into an early grave is more like it, you-!"

" _Fine!_ " Harry shouted suddenly, springing to his feet. He wadded the letter from the Ministry in his fist and threw it violently across the table, but it bounced off Uncle Vernon's balding head so lightly that it only frustrated him more. "Fine! If that's what you want to think!"

Uncle Vernon stood up from his chair as well, just in time for another owl streaking into the kitchen to collide with the back of his head and hurtle headlong onto the table. " _BLASTED-RUDDY-BIRDS! DAMNED-!_ "

As Vernon rubbed his head and continued choking out swear words, Harry recognised Errol, the Weasleys' broken down old family owl. Harry picked him up, wondering if he was hurt, but Errol only stuck out his claw with the letter, and when Harry took it, he shook himself off and flew away again, if a bit unsteadily. The envelope was addressed to Harry, from Arthur Weasley - Ron's Father, who worked at the Ministry.

 _Dear Harry,  
Dumbledore is sorting things out. You won't be expelled,  
trust me. I don't think you will, anyway. Do not leave  
your Aunt and Uncle's house. This is the most important  
thing. We're taking care of it.  
If anyone from the Ministry comes demanding your wand,  
don't give it up. Insist on a hearing.  
Whatever you do, do not leave the house!  
-Arthur Weasley_

 _Easy for you to say, Mr. Weasley..._

Harry looked up from the letter as Dudley moaned pitifully. Aunt Petunia lifted the mug from his mouth. "Duddykins? Are you all right?"

" _Was so cold..._ " he mumbled.

"What was it?" his father asked him gruffly. "Boy, what happened?"

Dudley began to raise his head; when he caught sight of Harry, his eyes widened. "He did something... He was... He was in my head..."

" ** _So it wasn't you, eh?_** "

As Uncle Vernon turned on him again, Harry knew there was no way he could make them believe the truth-that he'd had a flash into Dudley's mind not meaning to and still not knowing how, and then the Dementors had come, that they and not he had done the real damage, but even after Mr. Weasley's letter, he was still so angry and numb that he didn't care, and he stood his ground with fiery stubbornness as his Uncle came around the table.

"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia cried.

Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry's arm and yanked him forward; Harry's hand found his mug of hot cocoa and he took the handle - he was going to smash it against his Uncle's red, puffed up face, even as Vernon was drawing back a fist; Petunia was reaching for his elbow -

 _KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

Vernon instantly jumped clear of Harry and looked around as if he had heard gunshots go off, but they were only knocks on the door. He stood frozen for a moment and just stared toward them until they sounded again - _Knock! Knock! Knock!_ Petunia clutched her chest and collapsed into a chair as Uncle Vernon nervously crept across the living room and the knocks kept coming in polite threes and fours.

Very cautiously, he opened the door - it was Miss Figg! "Vernon, dear, I realised I had just the thing," she announced officiously, sweeping into the house. She had a brown paper sack in her arms along with the clanking bag of catfood. Vernon was too surprised to stop her. "I had all these Easter chocolates left over that we didn't use at the church ladies' sewing circle and I thought, 'wouldn't that be just the thing'..." she said as she shovelled fistfulls of foil-wrapped chocolate rabbits onto the table and pressed several into Dudley's pudgy hands. Harry could only stare at her; he realized he was still gripping the hot-chocolate mug that he had intended to use as a weapon, and he put it down carefully.

"Oh, Harry, such a face! Here," she said, pressing him to take some candies, then she rolled the top of the sack and handed it to a speechless Aunt Petunia. "And I had kept forgetting I was going to give you some of my zucchini, it just made so pretty this year..."

"Ah... thank... you," Petunia mumbled.

"Now, now, Mrs. Figg, it's very late of you to nice, er, come..." Vernon stammered. "We should really be tucking the boys into the door so let me show you to- ** _AUGH!_** " He was just reaching for Miss Figg's arm again when two more owls zipped in through the door that was still hanging open. He clapped his hands over the old lady's eyes, turned her by that grip on her head, and started pushing her toward the door. "Petunia had, ah, your Christmas present! Yes, she'd just gotten it out and you mustn't see it..."

"Oh, isn't she a treasure! You're a lucky man, Vernon, bless your heart. You kids have a good night!" Miss Figg called back as he led her away.

As Harry took the latest envelopes from the owls, Aunt Petunia carefully unrolled the top of the paper sack as if afraid it might contain a bomb. Harry couldn't help wondering what 'zucchini' was anyway and leaned over to look; it turned out to be a kind of dark green squash.

The owls swished past Uncle Vernon's head and out into the night as he was again trying to get the old lady out the door. "Good night, Mrs. Figg... Good night, Mrs. Figg - just GET OUT! -Er, 'red... spout.' To grow those, vegetable, things, I bet your... spout... to water them, you know, must be very... Good night. Yes..."

Finally he got the door shut behind her, locked every chain and bolt, and leaned against it, clutching his chest and catching his breath.

Harry tore open the two letters; the first was from Sirius - that meant he was all right! He'd signed it with the canine nickname he had told Harry to use when talking about him in public.

 _Harry - We're doing everything we can here, but  
DO NOT leave the house again. I'll get something  
better worked out ASAP, but until then the Dursley  
house is the safest place.  
You HAVE TO STAY THERE for now.  
More soon. - Snuffles_

The second letter was another one from the Improper Use of Magic Office, and again he only skimmed it. The room had been silent for a long moment, and he didn't know how much longer it could last...

". . . Brought to our attention that the previous letter you recieved may have been sent in error . . . _Expulsion is suspended pending further investigation_. . . Hearing to be held-"

"Get out."

Harry looked up. Uncle Vernon had recovered at last and was coming toward him, again fixing him with a vicious glare, but this time stopped several feet from Harry and just stood there facing off with him, making no further move to touch him or attack him. "You. Get out of my house."

For Harry, those words had no sting. All he had to lose was fourteen years of hateful memories. "You want me to leave?" he said calmly.

"Yes. Now. For good and all," Vernon declared. "I've had my fill of those _ruddy owls_ , and ' _Lamentors_ ,' or whatever-they-are - I've had my fill of _you_ and your whole... _Your kind! Now you collect up your hocus-pocus **garbage** and get out of my house and **don't come back, do you hear me?**_ "

Harry nodded slowly; he squeezed Sirius and Mr. Weasley's letters in his fist - they had told him to stay here... _But they don't understand._ They had never lived in the Dursley house. As far as he knew they were both pureblooded wizards; how could they know what it meant to be locked up with a family like this? They'd been keeping him in the dark all summer! Was that what they thought best? Was that what they thought safest? _They can't possibly understand... All right, Uncle Vernon. I'll go and start packing._ He opened his mouth to say it...

"No!"

Harry and Uncle Vernon both whipped around at the sound of Aunt Petunia's voice. Dudley didn't seem to hear; he had begun mechanically stuffing chocolate rabbits into his mouth.

Uncle Vernon gaped at his wife. "What... What did you...?"

"I said 'no'," she repeated, slowly rising from her chair.

"Petunia, he's got to go!" Vernon insisted. "Just look what happened to our Dud-"

" _NO!_ " Aunt Petunia stamped her heel against the floor; the rubber sole of her slipper made a squeak. "We can lock him in his room. We can brick over the window! You never have to see him, but we're not throwing him out!"

"Petunia?"

"Not now!" she cried. "I hate it all! I hate it just as much as you do, but I'm not going to throw my sister's child out there to... _Out there to get killed!_ " By the last word she was screaming and clutching at her face; she looked on the verge of tears.

Uncle Vernon said nothing, but clearly he had relented. He carefully took Petunia by the arms and held her as she began sobbing.

Harry's mouth fell open at the sight. Aunt Petunia crying, Uncle Vernon holding her, even gently. In all these years he had never seen such a thing happen in the Dursley house. More amazing still, Aunt Petunia had stood up for him. He and Miss Figg had caught her sneaking a look at the Daily Prophets Harry threw out - had she seen that story early in the holiday, where they admitted that Dumbledore had announced Voldemort's return? Did Aunt Petunia know what that meant, as she had known about Dementors? Had she been keeping Harry locked in his room trying to _protect_ him? He could scarcely believe that all of this was real!

Aunt Petunia turned her tightly-wrung face toward him. " ** _GET UP TO YOUR ROOM!_** " she shrieked angrily. " _STAY THERE THIS TIME LIKE I TOLD YOU!_ "

These were really the Dursleys after all, and they didn't have to tell Harry twice. He leapt up the stairs two at a time and breathed a sigh of relief to close his door behind him and again be in his room, his own space, surrounded by his own Magic things...

When he looked up, he found that the window was closed and the drapes were pulled, where he had left them standing wide open. What's more, he had left his Firebolt and Invisibility Cloak under the lilac bush, and now they both lay neatly on his bed. Beside them was another folded brown paper sack; this one had "For Harry" written on it with a quill. He put away the broomstick and cloak, then sat down on his bed with the sack, opened it up, and took out a folded note.

 _Sorry again for the way I've acted  
all these years. Next time you come  
I'll show you my basement. I've  
got some older photo albums down there  
that I think you'll like, and I'll make  
you biscuits from my own recipes.  
Arabella_

In the bottom of the bag, he found a dozen or more Chocolate Frogs and a bottle of Butterbeer. As he flopped down on the bed, he wholeheartedly took back every bad thing he had ever thought about the batty old cat lady who lived two streets over.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Three: A Tap on the Glass**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Two_

Maybe I'm not cut out to write HP pseudo-canon. The Dursleys ended up coming across as mildly human! I mean, how much more off-script could I get than that, really? I find the muddying of Aunt Petunia's motives here more interesting though, than just having Albus micromanage her...

I apologise, but I've got to say this: while I didn't intend it, is it just me or are some of Uncle Vernon's slips of the tongue here bordering dangerously on the Freudian? First an owl barely saves him from offering to show Arabella to bed ( _there's_ a word that gets awkward in a hurry when transposed), then he starts babbling about her red spout that 'must be very' something. ...Yes, I can hear your soul crying out in pain from here... ;;; (Between this and Dudley's cracks about Sirius last time... Why does this keep happening? I hope it's just the Dursleys... -;;)

In brainstorming various things, it was initially sheer sloppiness on my part to forget that she was "Mrs." Figg, and before correcting myself, I became very attached to her being a "Miss," so I decided to retcon/no-prize it. However, I think it does seem nicely Dursley-esque to insist that the old lady down the street must be a "Mrs.", especially since- urk! ...must... save... reveal... 0o Also, later on, it's kind of a general "much with the sticks up our arses" characterisation thing if someone insists on calling her "Mrs."

In general I gave Arabella a _lot_ of retooling, but come on, a member of the Order so cleverly hidden all this time, I felt downright cheated! Cheated out of an interesting new personality, and once again cheated out of a strong and likeable female character. Besides, when you choose the lifelong guardian of your... well, your Harry, you want the best, darnit! And my Arabella arguably was the best for such a job; not so much with the pyrotechnics, but she does pwn Dementors with her home-baked cookies, and somehow she did knock on the Dursleys' door at the exact right moment...

  



	3. A Tap on the Glass

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Three  
 _A Tap on the Glass_**

Harry kept feeding the Chocolate Frogs to his lingering nervousness, one after another until they were all gone. Between that and finishing up the entire bottle of Butterbeer, he gave himself a stomachache, but he felt more relaxed and sleepy despite it. Among the cards, he found two Albus Dumbledores — he had already had one — and one card he'd never seen before and that made him rub his eyes and stare. It bore a picture of a swaddled baby with a red lightning-shaped cut on his forehead: "Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived." Harry had been confronted with enough cameras and autograph requests to know how famous he was among wizards — or how famous he had been before the Daily Prophet began their recent smear campaign — but he had never known that a Chocolate Frog card had been made about him. He watched the image of his baby self yawn and stretch and suck his thumb, then picked up the Dumbledore cards. The Headmaster had wandered out of the picture on one of them, and winked at him from the other. "What's going on?" he asked the image, but it only gave him a quizzical look over its half-moon spectacles.

He just tossed all the cards and wrappers onto the floor for the night; he'd sort through them in the morning. For now he just wanted to sleep, and he kicked off his shoes, set aside his glasses, and stretched out in bed in his clothes.

That night he dreamt of a swirling blue light that led him into a sparkling place full of golden sand and sighing and ticking noises, as if he were emerging from the ocean onto a strangely mechanical beach. He found a portal, perhaps the mouth of a cave, and walked into it to find himself in a huge library. There were endless shelves upon shelves filling an enormous room, but instead of books, the shelves were full of glowing round bottles or crystal balls.

It was only as he walked along with the ends of the shelves sweeping rhythmically past him that his mind came into focus. He looked over and saw that every bottle had a parchment label, some of them very old: cracked, faded, and peeling. The bottles were in fact completely spherical, even on the bottom, and there were circular holes cut into the shelves for them to rest in. The sight of them gave him a chilling sense of deja vu. He turned his face forward again, and at first it seemed as if a disembodied violet tophat were floating through the air just ahead of him. It looked familiar as well, although he didn't think he had seen it here before, and as he looked at it, he noticed a fringe of hair visible beneath it; sticking up a little as if resting against invisible cloth... It _was_ invisible cloth, he realised. A small man was wearing the tophat and an Invisibility Cloak with the hood down, walking ahead of Harry.

At last they came to a certain familiar row; "Here." Harry heard a high hiss of a voice from just below his eyes, as if he himself had spoken, but he knew that that couldn't have been him. The man in the top hat turned and walked down along the shelves. Harry knew where they were going to stop even before they did.

"That one," said the voice. The tophatted man's hand reached up toward a certain luminous bottle. Harry's viewpoint rose up higher to look closely at it. It too was familiar, but he somehow knew he was seeing it more closely than ever before, and he concentrated hard on it, on getting a good look at the label...

VOLDEMORT

There was more written on it, but before Harry was shocked out of reading any further; then he suddenly noticed the reflection — _his_ reflection — in the glass surface. _But that can't be me!_ He saw a blood-red, slit-pupilled eye...

At just that moment, the man's hand touched the bottle. The ghastly reflection exploded in a tempest of red and purple sparks—

Harry wrenched himself up in bed, panting hard. He put his hands around in the dark and had to feel the glass of the window, the crackly candy wrappers on the floor, and the familiar shape of his glasses to ground himself in reality again. He didn't put the glasses on, but just let himself flop back onto his pillow. His forehead was prickling — his scar had hurt before when Voldemort was angry. Was he angry now? The bottle had been labelled with Voldemort's name, and that had been his voice and his horrible eye reflected in the dream. Was it just a dream? Maybe he had seen what Voldemort was really doing right now — or just as likely, he told himself, he had felt the scar start to itch in his sleep and his mind had woven Voldemort into some kind of fantastical scenario...

He couldn't shake the feeling that he had dreamt something very similar earlier in the summer, but most of his dreams had taken place at Hogwarts or the wizard village of Hogsmeade nearby it, or occasionally Diagon Alley in London, among all the Wizard shops.

Already, the dream of just now was fleeing from his memory, let alone one he might have had weeks ago. He was so tired that it was useless trying to puzzle it out. Harry just rubbed his forehead and rolled over, thinking to himself that he would tell Sirius if it kept up.

The next morning brought a bowl of scrambled eggs and bacon through the catflap, but by noon it was back to the cold tinned soup. In cleaning up from the previous night, Harry found Sirius's letter again. He had told Harry to stay at the Dursley house "for now," until Sirius could arrange something better, "ASAP." _Maybe that means they're getting me out of here._ At any rate, packing up the school things he had left laying about would give him something to do now that he was locked in his room again.

He had just begun picking up when he heard Uncle Vernon's car pull back into the garage, even though it was only mid-morning. Not long afterward there came loud scraping noises from his window, and he lifted the drapes aside to find Vernon's anger-flushed face. Presumably his uncle had called in sick to the office and gone out to a hardware store, because now he was indeed on a ladder with blocks and cement to brick over Harry's window. Uncle Vernon shot an angry glare through the glass, so Harry just let the curtains fall and tried to ignore him. However, the off-key humming was persistently unnerving, and Harry noted sorrowfully that he wouldn't be able to sneak out that window — nor his friends be able to sneak him out through it — ever again.

Trying to avoid the window, Harry picked up around the room and packed his trunk, leaving out only the book he was reading — _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ , a Christmas gift from Hermione — and what he needed to do his homework. Uncle Vernon finished work by dinnertime, and Harry was by then so bored that he'd spent an hour taking things out of the trunk and rearranging them more compactly, even though it all fit just snugly in the trunk no matter how haphazardly he piled it. Just after dinner, he decided to go to bed early, and he read his History of Magic textbook until he got sleepy; it wasn't long.

With the window blocked up, turning off the lights left his room almost totally black, and his sleep felt equally black, deep and dreamless. He woke once and saw that even the small light shining under his door was gone, so the Dursleys were all in bed. After that, he fell asleep again, and he had no idea how late it was when ticklings at his eyes and ears niggled him awake.

 _tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

He opened his eyes drowsily; all he could see was his own blanket-bundled feet in a pool of moonlight.

"Maybe we got the wrong room, or maybe he's not here," came a muffled female whisper.

"The Dursleys would only have done that to Harry's window and only if he were here." The second voice was mild and masculine; it sounded familiar.

Suddenly Harry remembered what Uncle Vernon would only have done to his window, and yet now he was staring at a fuzzy silver patch of moonlight. And that noise — it was someone tapping on the glass! He felt around for his glasses.

 _tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

"I think I can see him..." the man whispered.

"Well then just magic it open for goodnessakes!"

"I don't want to just barge in on him."

"Is this really the best time to be minding your manners, Professor?"

Harry put on his glasses and peeked out the window. Sure enough, all of Uncle Vernon's bricks and mortar were mysteriously — magically? — gone, but he saw only the stars and moon and streetlamps lighting up Privet Drive; he couldn't see whoever was talking. "Who's there?"

"Snuffles' old friend," came the soft reply.

Harry now knew who it was. "Professor Lupin!" He threw back the curtains and pulled the window open as wide as it would go. A moment later, a sliver of image was superimposed on the night sky as the folds of an Invisibility Cloak were drawn stealthily aside. From Harry's point of view, it was as if the night sky were a curtain being opened a little, and ducking side to side, he could see through the slit two people on a broomstick. One of them was the person whom he had recognised as "Snuffles' Old Friend" — Remus Lupin, who had been best friends with Sirius and with Harry's father as far back as their school days. More recently he had been Harry's favorite teacher in all his years at Hogwarts, although he had been forced to resign after only one year when it had become known that he was a werewolf.

But for now, the full moon had passed a few days before, and Professor Lupin was perfectly human as he braced his hands on Harry's windowsill. "Now, hold it steady..." he said to the witch still on the broom; the admonition was barely out of Lupin's mouth when the broom jerked in her hands and only a quick grab onto the sill kept him from falling into Aunt Petunia's geraniums below. "Tonks!" he called under his breath.

"Sorry, sorry!"

As Harry grabbed hold of Lupin and tried to pull him into the room, "Tonks" dipped the broom lower; the Invisibility Cloak fell off and fluttered to the ground, revealing her as a young woman in dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt, with slicked-down hair in... grape purple? Harry thought surely that color must be a trick of the light as she took hold of Lupin's feet and lifted them up, finally sending him through the opening in a graceless forward flip that landed him sideways across Harry's bed on his back, with his feet on the floor opposite the window.

The young woman leaned in the window with an embarassed-but-friendly grin at Harry. "Order of the Phoenix, at your service," she said.

"Tonks, the cloak!" Lupin whispered.

"Oh!" She darted down after it.

"I'm getting too old for this..." he muttered to himself as he got up.

Harry knew that Professor Lupin wasn't actually old — he had to be only in his mid-thirties — but he had struggled all his life with his condition, as well as the associated stigma that kept him practically penniless. As a result he often appeared drawn and sickly, his face was careworn beyond his years, and there were already patches of grey in his brown hair. Harry hoped that the moonlight now was making him look paler and more silvered than he really was, but certainly he had lost weight since Harry had seen him last, and his shabby old robes had more patches on them than ever.

"Professor Lupin, is it really you?" Harry asked. "And who's...?"

"That is Tonks; you'll meet her soon. She may be a bit clumsy, but put me on a broomstick and I'm worse than she is, it's been so long... Do you need me to prove to you who I am?"

Even though he had said "is it really you?" Harry didn't truly feel himself in doubt. Still, it couldn't hurt to be sure... "What form does my Patronus take, and why?" he asked.

"A stag; it was your father's Animagus form," Lupin answered correctly. "That's why we used to call him 'Prongs'." He looked around the room. "I'm afraid I'll need more space than this... Do you have all your things packed?"

"Almost," Harry said. "You're getting me out of here?"

"We're taking you to the Order's headquarters," he whispered. "That's all I can tell you for now."

That was enough for Harry. He picked up his last few books and quills and put them in his trunk, which Lupin then used his wand to levitate out of the room and down the stairs very quietly. Harry followed him as he floated the trunk into the living room, then took a parchment note from his pocket and left it on the dining room table before returning to Harry.

"Telling the Dursleys where I am?" Harry questioned, looking over at the note.

"Telling them that you're safe; we mustn't leave them to worry."

Professor Lupin was taking out something else; as Harry squinted at it in the dim moonlight, it looked to be a pocket-size pipe tobacco tin. "The original contents are long gone, don't worry," Lupin assured him. Harry was glad to hear it not only because smoking was a nasty habit, but also because the tin looked decades old, with several dents and a few touches of rust.

The hinged lid squeaked as Professor Lupin opened the tin and tipped out a single match into his hand. He gestured for Harry to give him room, then he crouched in the middle of the living room, struck the match, placed the tin on the floor, and dropped the tiny flame inside. As Lupin backed off from it, Harry was afraid for a moment that the carpet might catch, but then the tin emitted a rushing sound and inflated until it half-filled the room and nudged an armchair aside. It had transformed into a cabin — a very tiny one, like maybe a hunter's shack, but nonetheless there was a little log cabin now standing in the Dursleys' living room.

Lupin opened its door and stepped aside for someone to come out. It was another of Harry's former professors, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. However, he had never actually held a class; it had turned out at the end of the past school year that the teacher was a Death Eater who had imprisoned and impersonated the real Professor Moody. Having thought he had known the man for a year and then found out otherwise made it an especially strange feeling for Harry to now be meeting the genuine article, and it was already somewhat awkward to meet someone so crisscrossed with scars. Moody had been an Auror, a magical law enforcement agent, and years of that job had left him with a wooden leg, a chunk of his nose missing, and one wide, round, electric-blue false eye that swivelled around in all directions and could see through solid objects, among other abilities Harry didn't fully understand.

"It all went off right?" Moody asked Lupin.

"Two days slow," Lupin said. As a response it didn't make much sense; Harry imagined that it was a pre-arranged password.

Moody's magical "Mad Eye" turned on Harry. "How d'you know it's really him?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he didn't know what he could say to prove himself. Lupin walked over to stand very close in front of him and looked him straight in the eyes. Two years ago, when he had been Harry's teacher, he would have had to bend over a little to do so, but now he only had to incline his head. "Don't be afraid, Harry," he said; he lifted a hand and lay his palm against Harry's cheek. His hand was cold, and Harry thought he could feel very fine hair on it — a werewolf trait according to his textbooks.

"What are you—?"

"Don't worry. This will feel strange, but you know I wouldn't hurt you. Look at my eyes."

Harry did look into Professor Lupin's eyes; their color was a dull and generally unremarkable blue which the dim light made to look dark as iron. Lupin looked at him very seriously and kindly, but in a moment, Harry found himself no longer paying attention to his former teacher's gaze.

Just as if his mind were wandering, recollections began to flash before his mind's eye. Learning the Patronus Charm, practicing it against a boggart that Professor Lupin was keeping in his shabby old suitcase... The night he had found out the truth about Sirius: Harry and Ron and Hermione had cornered Sirius in the Shrieking Shack, thinking that he had been trying to kill Harry all school year, when Lupin had burst in. Harry and his friends hadn't understood what passed between them, and to Harry's horror, Lupin had lifted Sirius up from the floor and hugged him...

 _What's happening? Professor?_ Why was this all flashing through his head? Harry looked back at Lupin's eyes, his mind demanding to know...

And then he found himself not just seeing that hug but _feeling_ it. Such desperate joy — he had thought he was the only one left, and now that loneliness was lifted away. He felt a pang at squeezing just skin and bones in his arms, at finding Sirius so wasted by hardship, where he had once been so hale and handsome... But he was here, and he was alive, and he was innocent; that was all that mattered.

 _Why did that night go so wrong? My fault..._ His mind flashed forward to later that evening; by the time he recognised that sensation of the rising moon needling in his bones and remembered that he had forgotten his potion, it was too late to even scream. He felt a shackle on his wrist; his body seized up so that he couldn't move — _can't get away from them!_ Straining agony wracked his body as it began to reshape itself, and it sent his mind spinning out of shape. He knew that Harry and Ron and Hermione were there beside him, and for one moment, side-by-side, were the terrible twin certainties... The three children were right there in reach. The moment he could move, it would be one turn and he could get his teeth on them — he _would_ sink his teeth into them, was eager for the taste of their blood! But at the same time he clung desperately to the fast-fading knowledge that that must never happen, that he would rather he should be killed than to do that, but it was too late for him to stop it! _Please, someone stop it! Someone help me! SIRIUS—!_

Lupin lifted his hand from Harry's cheek with a gasp. They were back in the Dursleys' dark living room, and Harry realised that only an instant had passed.

"What happened?" Moody hissed.

"Nothing. Nothing..." Lupin said, shaking his head. "This is definitely Harry."

"Right." Moody handed him a pocketwatch and a paper sack.

"Professor Moody?" Harry started.

"Save it, Harry. No time to dawdle."

"We'll be able to talk later," Professor Lupin added, then gestured to the door of the tiny cabin. "Please, come inside."

Lupin stayed behind exchanging some words with Moody as Harrry took the invitation and entered the little cabin. Being magical, he hadn't immediately assumed that it was as small inside as out, but he found that indeed it was. The wooden walls enclosed perhaps a seven-foot cube of space beneath the rough-hewn rafters and short pitched roof, and a single-person bed took up fully half the floor. There was just enough room left over for the door to open inward and for a little black potbellied stove that stood in an adjacent corner, with a single shelf projecting from the wall above it. A few books and papers lay on the shelf, together with a single teacup and saucer and a chipped cream and sugar set that didn't match the cup; the cream-pitcher was full of teabags. A dented old teakettle sat on the stove, which was cold on such a mild summer night as this. Harry sat down on the head of the bed. Its pillow and sheets were dingey-colored from years of use, and he could see a few mends and holes, but mostly they were hidden beneath a pile of threadbare quilts and well-worn crocheted throws. His heel knocked against something stowed under the bed, and when he lifted the edge of the covers, he found that it was a familiar old suitcase with the name "Professor R. J. Lupin" lettered on a corner of it in battered and peeling type.

He hastily dropped the blankets again as Lupin entered, floating Harry's trunk in before him, and shut the door. He sat down at the foot of the bed and settled the trunk down across the middle of it, then Harry heard Professor Moody rattle the doorknob. There came a whooshing sound as if a gust of wind were blowing by the little cabin from behind.

"He's collapsed it into the tin again," Lupin explained. "Alastor will carry us to the headquarters like this, but since we can't leave by the door until someone expands it again, and we don't want to take chances..." He handed Harry the paper sack; inside it was only a spoon. "That's a portkey," Lupin told him. "There are ways that we can hide our illicit spells from the Ministry, but better to avoid using it if we don't have to. However..." He opened the pocketwatch and set it out where they could both see it. "...If we aren't at the house by three o'clock, you and I are to use that to get back. And if anything goes terribly wrong — say if the door opens and it isn't anyone from the Order — then you are to use the portkey immediately. Don't wait for me, understand?"

 _So if there's trouble, I'm supposed to just leave you here?_ Harry wondered hotly, but he didn't want to bother arguing with Professor Lupin and nodded. "Where are we?"

Lupin looked around with an embarassed little smile. "This is my house. Sirius has taken to calling it my 'Castle in the Sky.' I know it isn't much, but please make yourself comfortable. If you'd like to lie down again after we disturbed your sleep..."

"No, no," Harry said. He was so excited to be back among magical things and friends that sleep was the furthest thing from his mind now. Looking around the little cabin again, he thought it must be difficult for one's home to be such a tiny space, but at the same time it felt warm and inviting. Harry thought that even if the Dursleys took a holiday and he had their whole house to himself, he would prefer Lupin's little cabin. "I like it," he said with a grin, then turned to the professor. "So what's been happening? All summer no one's been telling me a thing — surely no one can hear us in here."

Lupin resettled himself. "Voldemort hasn't been making any overt moves. The Ministry's attitude must be quite an unexpected advantage for him. They can't oppose him if they refuse to see him, and are even fighting his enemies for him... Of course you'll know they're trying to discredit anyone who speaks out about him, and for now all of us in the Order are risking arrest while we go against him directly. I'm certain he'll capitalise on that as much as he can before he makes himself known."

"Miss Figg said you were taking care of it... That means he is doing _something_ , doesn't it?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss details," Lupin said. "Suffice to say we have been able to stop what he's tried so far."

"What about Sirius?" Harry asked. "How is he?"

"He's well, and safely ahead of the authorities. He's waiting for us at the headquarters, so you'll be seeing him very shortly."

Harry's heart gave a joyous leap.

"Being your godfather, I'd rather leave things for him to explain," Lupin said. "A lot of what we've been doing lately has been getting the headquarters in order. The Weasleys have been helping a great deal with that; you'll see Ron and Hermione when we get there also."

Harry smiled, nonetheless thinking to himself, _Now I can **make** them tell me what's going on._ "What about you?" he asked Professor Lupin. "You're not looking so well."

"Oh, I've been getting along," Lupin said, pleasantly but flatly. Harry's impression was that he didn't want to talk about it.

"Will you be back teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year?" he asked hopefully.

"No, I can't," Lupin answered. "After it got out about my condition and I resigned, the Ministry passed a law making it a crime for werewolves to work with young people."

" _What?_ "

"Yes, they decided that someone like me is too dangerous to have near children," he said sadly. "In all honesty, I see their point..."

Harry opened his mouth to protest — Professor Lupin was not only his own favorite, but one of the best teachers he had seen for helping all the students learn, and certainly one of their kindest professors. He had seemed to love the job and truly care about Harry and all his classmates, even the ones from Slytherin house who had made fun of his patched old robes. And now he could be arrested for that, charged fines he could certainly not afford, or even thrown in Azkaban with the Dementors? If they were going to ban a teacher from the school, Harry thought, why couldn't it have been the venomous Potions Master, Professor Snape?

Even worse, Lupin was saying he saw why he should be treated this way? Harry wanted to shout at him and tell him no, that was all wrong, but without even an hour having passed, he freshly remembered what he had seen and felt for a moment in the Dursleys' living room: that eager need to bite, knowing he mustn't, but knowing too that he couldn't stop himself wanting it and doing it. He must have seen into Professor Lupin's mind; that must be how it felt, and it gave Harry a chill also to have seen himself as the object of the compulsion. He still thought the Ministry's law was wrong, but...

"Professor... What happened back there?" he asked. "Back at the house, you know, when Professor Moody wanted to be sure it was really me...?"

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," he said. "I used a magical technique to look into your mind, looking for a memory of something you had done or seen while I was there, a memory I knew the real Harry would have. I didn't intend to pry, or..."

"But then something went wrong," Harry said.

Lupin looked thoughtful. "I wouldn't say 'went wrong' exactly... Harry, have you ever experienced anything like that before? Perhaps when you touched someone, or looked into their eyes?"

"Ah... No..." Of course Harry had, just the night before when he had been glaring eye-to-eye and seen how Dudley had always been afraid of him, but he didn't want to talk about that. Of course, most of the summer, he had been shut up in his room and hardly seen anyone's face, let alone looked them in the eyes or touched them.

"It is curious..." the professor mused. "I'll have to speak with Dumbledore before I could tell you more about that. I'm not an expert in such things, myself.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked. "I only have teabags, but what I have, you're welcome to."

Harry nodded.

"Chocolate?"

"Only a little."

Lupin heated the teakettle with a tap of his wand and took a chocolate bar from a pocket of his robes. There was only the one teacup in the little cabin, so when it had steeped, Lupin offered it to Harry without having any himself, and they both had bits of the chocolate as they waited.

Harry glanced down at the pocketwatch; it read one forty-one A.M. Seventy-nine minutes at most and then he would see his friends and see Sirius. His godfather he knew he would just hug, but after weeks of frustration, he wasn't sure whether to hug Ron and Hermione or shout at them.

 _Well, I still have..._ he checked the watch again, _...seventy-seven minutes to decide._

In fact it only took another half hour before Harry heard another gustlike sound, this time as if a wind were blowing by from front to back. Professor Lupin said they had made just about the expected time, but nonetheless when there came a knock on the door, he stood between it and Harry and readied his wand before calling "Come in!"

It was Professor Moody who opened the door, his grizzled gray hair drenched. "We're home and clear. Can set off Estelle if you want proof."

"That... won't be necessary," Lupin said. He took Harry's trunk and led the way out of the cabin.

Harry emerged to find that the Order's headquarters had to be a mansion. He and Lupin, Moody, and Tonks stood in a grand foyer with a high ceiling. Along the walls, attached columns wore wreaths of floating candlesticks that lit the huge space only dimly. These alternated with pedastals where strange sculptures and other items stood beneath dark twice-life-size portraits that looked down on him disdainfully and grumbled among themselves. He didn't think he had seen any of these particular people, but they all had black hair and finely-sculpted features that looked vaguely familiar. At the head of the room, two great zigzagging staircases angled outward up and down from the edges of a raised dais; on its back wall, larger and brighter candle-fixtures flanked a pair of stained silk curtains that looked as if they could cover a large doorway. The upward stairs led to a balconey on the next storey, then on to more floors above the ceiling, and the wall along them was lined with some sort of mounted trophy-heads; after squinting for a moment, Harry's stomach twisted as he realised they were the heads of numerous house-elf servants.

Moody was sopping from head to foot, and Tonks ran her hands over her soaked hair — which Harry could now see was indeed grape purple — to squeeze water out and shook the drops off her hands. A couple of them caught Harry in he face; he felt one hit his cheek and another left a spot on his glasses. "Was it raining?" Lupin asked.

"No. 'Old Al' here insisted on flying us through some clouds for cover," Tonks griped.

Harry could not have imagined anyone calling Professor Moody "Al."

"Little water won't hurt you. You're supposed to be an Auror, girl!" Moody growled.

"Lemme take your trunk, Harry," Tonks offered, taking its handle from him and wheeling it up toward the stairs.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention— _Whaah!_ " As she pulled it up the last step onto the dais, her wet shoes slipped on the floor and she fell backward.

" _Cover your ears—!_ " Lupin cried.

But Harry didn't understand the order and hesitated until Tonks' hair brushed against the silk curtains just as she caught herself. Suddenly the draperies blew open as if a sudden gale had erupted from behind them, and for a moment, Harry thought it was indeed a doorway, but then he realised it wasn't — it was an eight-foot tall full-length portrait of a witch in a dark purple robe. Her plaited coffee-black hair had only touches of gray in it, but her skin was blotchy and slack, making her look badly aged and sickly. Her face contorted with rage, and she let out a shriek that filled the huge foyer to its soaring ceiling—

" ** _SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK! STAIN ON MY NAME! DEATH OF YOUR FATHER! DEFILER OF MY NOBLE HOUSE!_** "

Head throbbing, ears splitting, Harry belatedly clapped his hands to his ears to block the deafening screams. "WHAT IS THAT?" Although he shouted at the top of his lungs, his own voice sounded tiny and distant.

"THAT'S ESTELLE!" Lupin answered. Harry could barely hear his shout despite feeling the breath of it on the back of his hand.

Harry thought he heard footsteps on the stairs, but it could have been his own head pounding as the portrait held forth...

"— _HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF YOUR FATHER'S FATHERS, OUR BLOOD THE PUREST OF THE PURE, AND NOW YOU **DARE** TO BRING THIS HALF-BLOOD **WORM-SPAWN** HERE TO BE CALLED **FAMILY!**_ "

" ** _OH, SHUT UP!_** " another voice bellowed, succeeding for one moment in shouting the painting down.

Harry felt a pair of arms take him and pull him along up the stairs — past one landing, two, three... By the time those arms led him into a hallway, the painting's shrieks had at last begun to fade with distance, and he removed his hands and unscrewed his face just in time for a glimpse of dancing blue shapes on the hallway walls before they came to a solid blue door, and he was ushered through into a solid blue room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted in a single shade of vivid sky blue, but there was a gray stone fireplace crackling merrily, and two wooden dressing tables and a writing desk faced three simple but sturdy and warmly-blanketed beds.

Hermione Granger and Ron and Ginny Weasley sat on the edges of two of the beds, facing each other and talking, but they all whipped around at his entrance. He saw his snowy owl Hedwig perched on a bedpost, and she hooted happily, as Ron's tiny owl Pigwidgeon zipped across the room and spun circles around his head.

"Harry!" Hermione called brightly; she and Ginny waved at him with broad smiles.

Ron turned and grinned at him and rubbed an ear. "I hear you met Sirius's Mum."

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Four: Rare Chocolate Frog Cards**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Three_

As time goes on, I might decide that I tipped my hand too much with the dream sequence here and have to come back and blur this out, but there it is for now. I also don't know why I felt compelled to include a Harry Potter chocolate frog card, it just seemed like a good idea. I guess in book 5 it would be easy to forget Harry's erstwhile level of fame and esteem, so it at least communicates that, I think...

And introed Tonks a little. If one is going to have a remarkably clumsy character, one can at least make sa good for physical comedy...

With Lupin being my favorite character, I will want to be careful not to put too much spotlight on him, but nothing wrong with giving him a scene here. And I think I already gave him, like, _way_ more personality than he was ever accorded in canon book 5... -;; (:grumblegrumble'can'tgetajob'grumble:)

  



	4. Rare Chocolate Frog Cards

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Four  
 _Rare Chocolate Frog Cards_**

"Wha?"

"Yes," said a voice behind him.

Harry turned to the person who had led him upstairs and found himself looking at his godfather's deep gray eyes and roughly-shorn raven hair. Sirius Black's face was prematurely hollowed and lined, but those finely-sculpted features and more than a hint of willfulness still showed defiantly through.

"That was my Dear Old Mummy," Sirius said. "She passed away while I was in prison, but she left her portrait behind to make certain I'd know what she thought of me if I ever came back."

"You're joking!"

Sirius shook his head, but at least Harry thought there had been more sarcasm than bitterness in his voice.

"This is Sirius's house," Hermione explained. "He's letting the Order use it for a headquarters."

So Sirius had a house; maybe that meant Harry could move in with his godfather instead of his horrible aunt and uncle! "Wow!" he said. "I didn't know your family was..." He trailed off, having intended to say "rich," but then he remembered how dark and disdainful all the portraits downstairs had looked, the mounted house-elf heads, how the painting of Sirius's mother had gone off on a racist tirade about pure wizard blood... She had objected to Harry as "Half-blood" because one of his parents had come from a Muggle family, even though Harry was told his mother had gone on to become a very skilled witch nonetheless - rather like Hermione, who was the brightest student in Harry's class although both her parents were dentists.

If the people in those paintings had all had blonde hair instead of black, Harry would have guessed he had wandered into the Malfoys' house. Harry's arch rival at school, Draco Malfoy, was the son of that cruel, arrogant, and very rich family, not to mention the fact that Draco's father, Lucius, was a Death Eater, and the Death Eaters were the most violent pure-blood fanatics of all.

"My family was something, all right," Sirius said. "I'm afraid it might be a bit much to catch you with when you're in your pyjamas."

Harry looked down at himself; he had forgotten that he was still in his pyjamas from when Professor Lupin had gotten him out of bed. Ron and Ginny giggled at him having to check, and he shot them a glare.

"I promise I'll explain about it tomorrow and answer any questions as much as I can, about whatever," Sirius told him. "But for tonight, I thought it better to let you kids 'rest'."

"Right," Harry agreed. Judging by Sirius's wry smile, he clearly expected the students to stay awake all night catching up now that they were reunited, not go to sleep, and his promise of explanations in the morning was enough for Harry until then. He took Harry in his arms for a moment, and Harry returned his godfather a brief squeeze — he still felt somewhat bony, but not like the chilling near-skeleton in Lupin's memory...

"Have a good night," Sirius said, then slipped out.

Harry hated to see him hurry off as he watched the blue door clack shut, but the next moment he felt a soft breath of air and Hedwig alighted gently on his shoulder, then rubbed him affectionately with her soft feathers.

"Something must have happened," Ginny said as soon as Sirius was out of earshot. "Seems like they're all huddling in the kitchen."

"Yeah... Hey, Harry, wanna see if we can listen in?" Ron whispered loudly. Hermione shook her head a little at the mischievous suggestion, but all three of them were grinning at him.

Harry's hand stopped on Hedwig's wing in mid-stroke; he didn't smile back. After weeks of keeping him in the dark, they thought they could just dump him into the middle of things, that he'd go along with every little plan as if they'd been letting him in — as if they'd been _acting like his friends_ — all along? Their conspiratorial smiles infuriated him, and Hedwig glided off to a bedpost as his shoulders tensed. "No, I don't want to listen in! How am _I_ supposed to know what they're even talking about?"

"Harry, what are you—?" Hermione started.

"What am I on about? I don't suppose you'd know!" he shot back. "None of you have spent your holiday up to now locked in a bedroom and not allowed to poke your nose out except to use the toilet! You've all been _here_ where you can hear about it from your folks — _from the Order_ — not getting your news from the _worthless_ Daily Prophet and opening all your _friends'_ letters to get nothing but _fluff!_ "

"Harry, mate, we told you as much as—" Ron argued.

"As much as you could? ' _Hermione's a sore loser at Quidditch' is the best you could do!_ " Harry shouted at him.

"I'm what?" Hermione started, staring wide-eyed at Harry for a second before turning to Ron. "You said that?"

"Wha? No, I—"

"Wrote it in a letter," Harry finished flatly. He was savagely pleased to see Ron's freckled face turn bright red under Hermione's angry look.

"Well, we sent you all those Chocolate Frog Cards," Ginny remarked.

"Like Chocolate Frog Cards are supposed to help! I was the one who saw Voldemort come back! I was the one who looked him in the face, who got _tortured_ and—!"

But Ginny surprisingly locked eyes with him and didn't flinch. " _The ultra-rare Chocolate Frog Cards...?_ " she interrupted, in a loud conspiratorial growl.

" _Like I'm supposed to care about Chocolate Frog Cards at a time like this!_ "

Somehow that stunned them all into silence. Ginny pinched her eyes shut as Hermione and Ron blinked at him. "You didn't eat the Chocolate Frogs we sent you...?" Hermione queried.

" _OF COURSE NOT! I threw them in the bin!_ "

"Why'd you do that?" Ron cried.

Harry sputtered for a moment — why _had_ he done that? He'd just been angry, but if he said that, they wouldn't take him seriously; they wouldn't understand... "Well why shouldn't I?"

Hermione shook her head into her hand, rustling her bushy brown curls. Ginny's face had continued to screw up tighter and flush redder. Her arms were now ramrod-straight and braced on her knees, which fidgetted under her skirt. Ron looked over at her. "Ginny kid, don't explode."

But the moment he had said it she did explode — at Harry. She leapt to her feet; " ** _YOU STUPID, STUPID BOY!_** " Then she dashed past him, threw herself face-down on the unoccupied bed, and slammed the pillow over her head. Her vivid red braids stuck out from under it as she gave a muffled roar of frustration.

"What is she...?"

"Well, there was a lot Mum wouldn't let us tell you," Ron said. "She was screening our letters, so we couldn't just write about it..."

"Remember when I wrote you about Protean Charms in our new book, how you can use them to change the look of something without touching it or even seeing it?" Hermione asked. "Well, I taught myself to do it some, thinking I could change a letter once it was already checked and sealed."

"Mum always posted them straight away, so we didn't get the chance."

"It _can_ work at a distance, but I haven't managed that just yet..."

"Anyway," Ron continued, "when it came your birthday, we bought a load of Chocolate Frogs so she could use that on the cards and write to you for real."

Harry blinked at them in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

Ginny gave another exasperated cry from under the pillow and pounded the mattress with her fist; Harry took that to mean "yes."

"As if we'd have been stonewalling you because we wanted to!" Hermione huffed. "Really, Harry, you ought to know better than that by now."

"Well excuse me!" he snipped, but nonetheless he relented and sat down on the bed next to Ron, who offered some owl treats from his pocket as Hedwig flitted over to the bedpost at Harry's side.

"So, you want us to fill you in now, or you wanna try listening in on their meeting first?" Ron asked.

"Just fill me in," Harry said, taking the treats and passing them to Hedwig distractedly. He'd been waiting too long.

Ginny looked out from under the pillow, and as they settled in to talk, she came back over to sit beside Hermione. However, she still looked a little flushed and gave Harry angry looks.

"Well, nobody's heard much out of You-Know-Who," Hermione said.

"Professor Lupin told me that much. He said Voldemort—" the other three flinched at the name "—was staying low, but that they were having to stop him from something."

"That's about as much as they'll tell us," Ron said. "My best guess is that they've been guarding something he's after, but that's just a guess, going by how they talk about it without saying anything straight out, you know."

"We've actually only been here at the house for a couple of days," Hermione explained. "Mostly they kept us at the Burrow, and we just knew that Mrs. Weasley and Bill and Charlie were going off to help with something."

"Bill and Charlie?" Harry asked. Last he had known, Ron's two eldest brothers had had jobs abroad, breaking curses for Gringotts in the pyramids and tending dragons in Romania, respectively.

"Yeah, they both came back after what happened, thought about staying to work for the Order, but Charlie went back to Romania, thought he'd do more good abroad. Bill's back to stay, though — well, back in England; he rented a flat and moved out, but we see him a lot. Got the goblins to transfer him to the main office."

"He's training new curse-breakers. 'Ground school,' he calls it," Ginny added. "—Oh, and guess who else has got a job at Gringotts!"

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Fleur Delacour!" the girls said in chorus. The Triwizard Tournament the previous year — which Harry and Cedric had just won when Voldemort used a portkey to abduct and attack them — had brought students from other magic schools on the continent, including Beauxbatons in France. Fleur Delacour had been Beauxbatons' champion in the tournament, and Harry knew that she was the granddaughter of a veela, a magical creature that took the form of a preternaturally beautiful and beguiling woman.

"Can you believe they hired her as an accounts representative?" Hermione said. "It doesn't seem fair."

"So you want them to hire werewolves, but not people with a little veela in them?" Ron questioned.

"I don't mean that, but it's not fair if they're using her— that _thing_ she does to take advantage of people."

The thought of wizards succumbing to Fleur's siren charm and pouring all their money into the goblins' latest scheme in attempts to impress her amused Harry too much for him to follow Hermione onto her latest political tangent.

"Although I do hear she needs to 'improve her English' for the job," Ginny remarked with a grin. "That's what Bill _says_ she keeps coming to see him about, anyway..." She batted her eyelashes theatrically.

Harry laughed. Ron's ears went pink; he had spent some time last term under Fleur's spell himself.

"And then there's Fred and George and their jokeshop scheme!" Ginny continued.

"Oh, yeah, ton-tongue toffees, canary cremes, headless hats, the whole bit!" Ron said. "Mum's been trying to keep them on a tight leash, but you can guess how well that works on Fred and George. And she keeps going on sweeps of the house and and binning the stuff but it just keeps turning up — new kinds, too. What I can't figure out is where they're working on it."

"—Or where they're getting the money!" Hermione added.

"—But they must have something going that Mum doesn't know about."

"Mrs. Weasley's been worrying herself sick that they've gotten into something criminal," Hermione said. "Frankly I'm starting to wonder..."

By the looks on their faces, Ron and Ginny were a little worried in that way themselves; Harry thought keeping a secret now would do more harm than good... "Well, you don't need to worry about where they're getting the money."

"Huh?" Ron stared. "After you yelled at us! Are you holding something out, Harry?"

"I didn't want it to get back to your Mum," Harry admitted; he was none too eager for a share of the disapproval Mrs. Weasley aimed at her twin sons. "But you remember I got all that gold for winning the Triwizard Tournament? Well, I didn't need it — didn't really _want_ it after all of that — and I knew they needed money to start their business, so..."

"You _gave_ them your prize money?" Ginny questioned, forgetting her earlier fit of temper. When Harry nodded, she beamed at him so that he thought the look on her face might be worth the thousand galleons on its own.

Ron, on the other hand, twisted up his mouth. "Must be nice," he remarked sourly. The Weasleys had so little money that Ron and his siblings always had to make do with shabby used school robes and supplies, much less having enough to spare to give such large sums away.

"Well, that's probably better," Hermione said. "If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't put it past them to go a little outside the lines..."

"Right now we're _all_ 'a little outside the lines,'" Ginny reminded her, then grimaced. "Except Percy."

Harry looked at her questioningly. Percy was Ron and Ginny's third-oldest brother — in between Bill and Charlie and the twins — and when Harry had known him as a Prefect at Hogwarts, he had always been priggish, overly concerned with perfection according to the letter of the rules and, in Harry's opinion, arrogant and self-satisfied about his skill at measuring up to that standard. This past year, after he had graduated and gotten a job at the Ministry, he had been more concerned with pleasing his employers than with sticking by his family and friends. Unfortunately for him, he'd been too busy currying favor and enjoying the authority left to him by his absent boss, Mr. Crouch, to notice when Crouch was controlled and ultimately murdered by his insane Death Eater son escaped from Azkaban.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"He got a promotion," Ginny said.

"Wha?"

"Yeah, Fudge said that whole business with Crouch _obviously_ hadn't been Percy's fault and promoted him into his own office, Junior Advisor or something."

"The week after school ended," Hermione said, "the Daily Prophet finally had to run a story about what Dumbledore told us at the end of term feast, but they made it sound like—"

"I know how they made it sound," Harry said.

"Well, that afternoon Mr. Weasley came home, and he said Fudge was going through the whole Ministry, told everyone Dumbledore had gone around the bend, and if they couldn't just accept it and forget about him, then to clean out their desks. A few people left, and ever since then Fudge has been taking any little excuse he can to fire anyone he thinks is more loyal to Dumbledore than to him."

"They've been making Dad miserable," Ron said, "burying him in work, just doing any little thing to trip him up, try to get an excuse, but he's dug in his heels and isn't giving them one. —Although there have been a lot of nights he didn't get home until late, so much Mum stopped even trying to hold dinner for him. A few times I think he didn't sleep at all, just stayed at the office and worked through the whole night to stay on top of it all so they wouldn't have anything to natter about. It is starting to tell on him..."

"But that's probably what Fudge wants Percy for," Ginny said, "to try to get something on Dad or get a rise out of him so they can get rid of him..."

"And Percy was so proud of getting the job, like it was a real compliment," Hermione said. "You kind of have to feel sorry for him..."

"No, you don't," Ron sniffed.

"Not after he was so ugly to Mum and Dad anyway," Ginny concurred.

Harry cocked his head.

"Well, Dad tried to tell him," Ginny said. "Tried to tell him Dumbledore was right, and tried to tell him that Fudge was just playing him like a fiddle, and, well..."

"Percy lost it," Ron finished for her. "I always thought Mum could shout, but I've never seen a row like Dad and Percy had, and Percy just got really... Well, he told Dad he was stupid to stay with Dumbledore and get in for all this trouble, and to... well... to stick with you, thought it was because Mum and Dad felt sorry for you... He said Dad was... that he didn't have any sense and was just being a sucker..."

"'A soft head to match that soft heart,' he said..." Ginny added bitterly.

"But anyway, he said Dad could never tell or didn't have the brains to care which way the wind was blowing, and that that was why we were... Well, why Dad didn't make more money..."

"He didn't!" Harry blurted.

"That and plenty else!" Ron insisted. "But the main thing was, he said Dad could throw his career away over this if he wanted, but that he'd be hexed if he'd get dragged down, too, and he took his stuff and stormed out, just moved out of the house that night and swore he was never coming back. I guess he got a flat or something; we haven't seen him since..."

"Well, Dad must see him at work," Ginny said. "I don't know what they do when they run into each other; just try to ignore each other maybe... Mum and Dad play like they're holding up, but Mum still tears up sometimes, says it isn't for any reason, but everybody knows what it is..."

"And Dad fumbles whatever he's holding anytime someone mentions Percy, or talks about Fudge's little Inquisition and reminds him about it...

"The prat sent me and Ginny letters awhile after about how he still loved us and what his advice was not to have all of this reflect on us..." Ron continued, his face twisting disgustedly at the memory. "...So, how's _your_ holiday been so far?" he asked with bitter humor.

"Uh..." Despite all the anger he had come in with, Harry found that his first impulse was to say "Not too bad." Being locked in his room, not even having to deal with the Dursleys face-to-face, didn't seem so terrible compared with Mr. Weasley's problems.

"The last few days they've let us come over here to the headquarters, though," Ginny said. "Isn't it incredible? We haven't gotten much chance to explore it yet; Mum says it's too dangerous..."

"But you wouldn't believe some of the stuff that's laying around here!" Ron said, brightening up. "When Bill was helping Sirius and Lupin go through the place they found some Nimbus Fourteen Hundreds laying about and Sirius just let us _have_ them, said he'd trade for some of our old brooms. I mean, they're not Two Thousand and Ones, but better than what we had — the Cannons' Keeper still rides a Fourteen Hundred, you know."

Harry thought that explained quite a bit, but didn't think it wise to argue about Ron's favorite Quidditch team.

"Sirius has a house-elf, too, did you know that? I couldn't believe it!" Hermione said, then gave a shudder. "And all those heads on the wall downstairs!"

"Kreacher's his name, the house-elf here," Ron added. "Little monster of a thing; we've been trying to steer clear of him..."

"Oh, I'm sure he's not really so bad," Hermione argued.

"He locked Professor Lupin in the closet!"

"I barely got to see the house coming in," Harry broke in to admit, hoping to head off the brewing argument over house-elf rights — not a pleasant subject to set Hermione off about.

Ginny showed him a mischievous smile worthy of Fred and George's sister. "Well, we'll fix that before too long." It was a side of her Harry hadn't seen before, but she wore it remarkably well.

"The Order meets downstairs in the kitchen," Ron explained. "We're still trying to figure out what they're up to. They keep Imperturbing the door, but..." He looked around shiftily. "There _is_ another way in there if you want to try listening."

"Sure," Harry agreed.

"I don't know if we should..." Hermione said.

"Well it isn't like we're trying to wreck anything, we just want to know what's going on," Ginny argued. "I don't get what's the harm in that, why they're keeping us out..."

Finally Hermione relented enough to stay behind in the room while Ron and Harry went out into the hall, with Ginny hanging back to keep watch. Harry again saw those dancing blue shapes he had gotten a glimpse of on the way in, and he puzzled at them; the hallway walls were covered in childlike pictures put there with blue paint on a broad brush: lollipop trees, stars, a great blue dog...

"I don't know what's up with that," Ron said. "Hermione thinks they're sigils of some kind..." He led Harry to the end of the hall where there was a sliding hatch in the wall with a bell mounted beside it — a dumbwaiter. Ron carefully slid it open just a crack. "Sound carries great through these things, and a lot of times they don't think of them."

He took a ball of string and a couple of objects from his pocket, but as he unwound it, Harry realised that it was all a single apparatus. One end of the string terminated in a little orange pompon, the other in a rubbery shape that looked like a toy rabbit's disembodied ear. "Extendable Ear; present from Fred and George," Ron explained. He stealthily slipped the rubber rabbit ear through the crack and fed out the string, lowering it down the dumbwaiter shaft, then finally listened for a moment to the little pom. He gave a thumbs-up sign and offered the end of the string.

Harry took the orange puff and held it against his ear. Immediately he could hear familiar voices from the kitchen.

"—Don't want to hear any of that," came Professor Moody's gravelly voice. "Me and Lupin can't do it by ourselves, and this just shows how careful we need to be about it! A few sleepless nights are more important than that? 'Constant Vigilance' doesn't mean 'as long as it's convenient'!"

"I've had to take a few nights at the office and I've found I can manage it," Arthur Weasley said. "Maybe once every week or two...?"

"It'll have to be more often than that if nobody else volunteers."

"I'd be more than willing," came Sirius's voice.

"Sirius, no!" cried Ron's mother, Molly Weasley. "If they caught you—"

"As if it's safe for any of you! Look what happened to Diggle!"

"Who's Digg—" Harry started, but Ron shushed him.

"I'm willing to take the same risks as anyone," Sirius said.

"No, no, it'd be too much of a mess if you got caught, too many questions," Moody pronounced.

Harry's stomach lurched for other reasons at the thought of Sirius 'getting caught.'

"What I'm thinking of is what do we do about Dedalus?" a woman's voice asked. Harry didn't recognise her.

"We're short of hands and the Ministry's eyes are all on him," Moody said. "I don't think we can afford to do anything."

"We can't just leave him!" Sirius snapped. " _I'm_ certainly not going to sit by while they drag him off to Azkaban."

"Only six months..." someone said.

"Do you know what someone looks like after six months in that place?" Sirius questioned. "Knowing Dedalus... We'd be lucky if there was anything left of him after six months."

"I agree with Sirius," came Lupin's voice, "but I think it would be better to bide our time for now. Kingsley said he was incoherent when they found him—"

"—I just hope he isn't babbling anything they can put together," Moody said.

"—And that he was taken to St. Mungo's. I should think that they won't move him to Azkaban until he's well, and in the meantime, that's the best place for him. If what happened to him was what I think, then goodness knows _I_ wouldn't know how to take proper care of him... I doubt any of us could..."

The kitchen fell silent for a moment, and Harry lifted the pom away from his ear. He realised that Ron was looking at him expectantly, but he didn't want to talk about what he had heard. He was fumbling for an excuse when Ginny hissed down the hallway. "Incoming!"

Ron snatched the Extendable Ear and pulled it up too quickly; the ear end audibly knocked against the inside of the dumbwaiter shaft. With no time to worry about it, he wound the string around his hand and stuffed it back into his pocket as the three of them hurried back into the Blue Room and threw themselves to seats on the beds. A few moments later, Harry heard the rattling of his trunk's casters knocking their way up the stairs and wheeling into the hall, then Tonks opened the bedroom door and peeked in. "Still awake in here?"

"Yeah, had to lot to catch up on," Ron said. Harry was still too distracted by what he had listened in on to reply.

"Ooh, Tonks!" Ginny called as Tonks wheeled Harry's trunk in. "Show Harry! Do Snape's nose!"

"Huh?" Harry looked around and watched Tonks as she came up between the two rows of them.

"All right. I may be a little off my game this late, but I'll try it..." She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate hard, and then, as if her face were being somehow inversely molded from inside, her little gumdrop nose was subsumed by a large, hooked beak that pushed out from the middle of her face, looking indeed just like the nose of Harry's most hated teacher. Ron and Ginny laughed at the sight, even Hermione couldn't suppress a smile, and Harry laughed, too.

"How do you do that?" Harry asked. If it was a spell, he wanted to learn it!

"Been doing it since I was a kid," Tonks said; her voice now had a somewhat more nasal quality.

"Tonks is a Metamorphmagus," Hermione said. "They're quite rare, but they can change their appearance at will, especially facial features. Nobody knows how they do it or why certain people can, it's apparently just something a wizard or witch is born with now and then."

"I am one and I don't really understand how to do it, it's just like I always knew," Tonks concurred. She turned to the mirror over one of the dressers. "Was a big help on the Disguise and Concealment test in Auror training. I barely had to study at all for that. Of course the way I am with Stealth and Co-ordination, I needed all the help I could get," she admitted. As she spoke, her nose reshaped itself again into a high, delicate wedge, and her grape-purple hair, still straggly from getting wet, faded to soft periwinkle blue and fluffed up in a chin-length tapered shag.

"Professor Moody said you were an Auror," Harry recalled, and looked at her, impressed.

"Yeah. I don't get the idea Old Al thinks much of me as one, but I'm still a newbie..."

"What's it like?" Harry asked with interest.

She scratched her now-fluffy blue hair. "I'm not the one to ask about the job, but the training's a royal pain. They're strict like you wouldn't believe. Honestly, I don't know how I made it in — everytime I see old Gretel Wurtz who gave me my last exam, I still expect her to tell me there was a mistake and take my job away!" she laughed. "Well, I ought to let you get some sleep or keep catching up; I just nipped out of the meeting when I realised I'd forgot your trunk. See you 'round, Harry!" she said as she left. The four of them saw her off with a chorus of "Bye!"

"She's really fun; you'll like her," Ginny said.

So far Harry had no reason to doubt that, but with Tonks gone the distraction had passed, and his smile fell as he again thought of what he had heard through the dumbwaiter shaft.

"So what were they talking about down there?" Ron asked, driving the point home.

"Oh, nothing very interesting," Harry said. "Professor Moody was on one of his tears..." He moved his trunk into place by one of the beds and opened it, trying to avoid further questioning. Sleepiness had begun to settle in on him again, and going to bed would get him off the hook, but it would also leave him alone with his thoughts, which wasn't an appealing proposition...

"Oh, Moody's like that," Ron said, mercifully. "I wondered at first if maybe the fake had overplayed him, but I think if anything he was too easygoing."

"Well, after what Professor Moody went through last year, anyone would be jumpy," Hermione pointed out.

Harry rifled through his books and set out some clothes to put on later, and underneath _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ , he came across the new Chocolate Frog Cards from Miss Figg. He picked up the "Harry Potter" card again and looked at it; as sleepy as he was, everything seemed surreal and dreamlike in a room where that existed.

"What've you got there?" Ron asked, flattening himself on the bed to look over his shoulder.

"They made a Chocolate Frog Card of me."

"Wow, you got one of _your_ cards? Do you know how rare those are?"

"Can I see it?" Ginny asked, coming to sit on the bed beside her brother.

"Well, I don't know..." Harry said, holding the card to his chest to hide the image. As he'd been looking at it, his baby self had been sucking his thumb again and drooling.

* * *

  
Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione ended up staying awake; they had to fight back sleepiness, but it also made them increasingly silly and Harry at last started having fun. He did show his friends the Chocolate Frog Card of himself, and he and Ron laughed together at the depiction, while Ginny and Hermione squealed at how cute the baby Harry looked.

They were only starting to contemplate sleep the following morning when Mrs. Weasley came to fetch them for breakfast, and she clucked her tongue at them down the stairs. On the way across the second floor balconey, she knocked on the doors there and called for Sirius and Lupin; Lupin said he'd be along presently, and Sirius came out and joined them. They all tiptoed softly and carefully on the last landing at the head of the entry hall where the curtains concealed Sirius's mother's portrait, then at the bottom of the stairs they entered the kitchen. It looked unlike the rest of the house; the walls and floor were gray stone, and the cabinets and fixtures stout rustic wood. Mrs. Weasley had the table piled with eggs, bacon, toast, butter, fruit, and a pitcher of creamy whole milk.

Fred and George were already there dishing up plates. "'Morning!"

"Welcome back from Muggledom, Harry! Have a good time?"

"My best holiday there yet," Harry said sarcastically.

"Sit down, sit down," Mrs. Weasley said, urging him to a seat on one of the benches and piling food onto his plate. "You're looking peaky; can't have you show up for school like that. Eat."

After weeks of nothing but cold tinned soup for every meal — including breakfast — Harry was only too happy to comply.

Mrs. Weasley turned to the twins. "Pockets."

On the obviously well-trained cue, Fred and George sighed and rolled their eyes and turned out their pockets to show them empty.

"Hands."

They held out their hands: nothing. Mrs. Weasley was satisfied at that, but the moment she turned her back, Harry saw George take a wrapped pastille from his knuckles. By sleight of hand he had hidden it from his mother's checks, and now he passed it to Fred, who took the seat right next to Harry and surreptitiously tucked it into Harry's pocket. Sirius showed him a conspiratorial smile, apparently having noticed.

"Surely you kids could have let Harry get some sleep," Mrs. Weasley chided, taking several bags out of the teapot and setting it on the table. "I want you all in bed after breakfast, but goodness knows when you'll get back to normal..."

"Why worry about that?" Sirius asked. "With Remus on night duty, he's been keeping nocturnal hours. If the kids and I did the same, then we wouldn't leave him knocking about this house by himself at night."

"That'd be great!" George exulted.

"Can we, Mum?" Fred asked.

"Certainly not!"

"Well, why not?" Harry protested, unthinkingly talking around a mouthful of fried potatoes. He liked the idea of spending his nights awake with Sirius and Professor Lupin.

"It's... It's not healthful. You kids need sun," Mrs. Weasley insisted.

"Good luck with that in this place," Sirius said. "At least Harry should have the choice."

"Yeah, Hermione, too, you're not her Mum," Ron said; apparently the fatigue had made him a bit tactless.

"Her parents left her in my care, and for any child I'm responsible for, it's 'early to bed and early to rise,'" his mother said pointedly. "And with Harry's parents gone, I..."

Sirius cleared his throat loudly.

"...Well, I can see where in Harry's case... It's up to you, Harry, if you want to."

"So he's old enough to decide and we're not?" Fred protested before Harry could open his mouth.

"If he decides to stay up with Sirius and Professor Lupin, surely we can go along?" Hermione said. "We've been waiting weeks to see him."

"I'm sorry, dear," Mrs. Weasley said. "But it's up to you, Harry."

 _Some choice_ , he thought. When she had forbidden Ron and Hermione from it, she had really made Harry's decision for him — and he agreed with Fred. They were all a bit old for this, but what could he do? "I guess I'll try and get back to normal hours..."

"Well, it was a thought, anyway," Sirius said.

The door opened and Lupin came in. "Good morning, every—"

" _MAESTRO!_ "

Harry heard the twins shout beside him, but as he turned toward them there was a double _POOF!_ sound, and by the time he would have been looking at them they had vanished. With another _P-POOF!_ they reappeared flanking Professor Lupin.

"Can we get you anything?" George asked as they saw him officiously to a seat.

"Tea, Messir?" Fred suggested. "Earl Grey perhaps?"

"No, no, I shouldn't; I'll be going to bed after breakfast..."

"Chamomile, then?"

"Yes, please..." Professor Lupin looked embarassed at the attention, but also a bit bemused.

"They found out who made the map," Sirius explained. By that he meant "The Marauder's Map," a magical map of Hogwarts that revealed people moving through the hallways, secret passages, etc., which Fred and George had called "the secret of their success" when they handed it down to Harry his third year. It turned out Sirius and Lupin had made it during their own Hogwarts days, together with Harry's father, James Potter, and their then-friend Peter Pettigrew. The four had signed it with their old school nicknames: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.

Harry, however, was too embarassed to admit that the previous year he had handed it over to the fake Professor Moody, and now he had no idea where it was.

"I can't believe you, Harry!" George protested. "How could you hold out on us like that? To think we had Moony right there in the school for a whole year, and Padfoot and Prongs being _related_ to you for Merlin's sake...!"

"Well, I didn't _know_ until the night before Professor Lupin left," Harry told him.

"And you didn't even give us the chance to say goodbye!" Fred dabbed his face with a napkin and gave a theatrical sniffle.

Meanwhile George turned to his mother. "So, chamomile tea...?"

But she glared sternly at him. "How many times have I told you two? Just because you've got your license doesn't mean you have to Apparate every five feet! And there's no call for you to be pestering poor Remus, either!"

"Oh, come on, Molly, it's good for him," Sirius argued.

"Don't encourage them."

Sirius blinked as if taken aback; Harry thought Mrs. Weasley must not have realised that he wasn't kidding, and even if Sirius hadn't been sincere, Harry sincerely agreed with what he said. Professor Lupin was always too hard on himself and could stand to have the twins gush over him.

"He doesn't mind!" Fred said. "—Do you, Maestro?"

"No, not at all," Lupin said without turning from his toast.

"See?"

"You still don't need to Apparate across a room!" Molly persisted, nonetheless turning around to make the tea. "...Don't need to use magic to set the table, _especially_ not with the _carving knife_..."

Harry looked across to his friends; Ron and Ginny laughed into their hands at the memory.

"Well, we've got to practice!" George said.

"Where's the harm in it?" Sirius asked. "They just turned 17 and got their licenses, first time they can Apparate or use Magic outside of school — every kid goes through that phase. You should have seen me and James when we were their age."

"Bill wasn't like this! Charlie wasn't!" Mrs. Weasley argued.

"I'll bet they were, just not when you were looking," Sirius muttered.

" _Percy_ never— Oh!" She froze in mid-sentence, then abruptly whipped around and started fiddling vaguely with some dishes in the sink.

"Good thing we're not taking after _him_ ," George said.

"' _Prefects Who Gained Power'_ Percy..." Fred continued.

"Hogwarts Head—"

" _Frederick George Weasley!_ " their mother cried.

"Ah, I'm George Frederick."

"Save it," Ginny said, peeling an orange.

"Well, I am, honest."

"Save it anyway."

Harry blinked at them. "George Frederick and Frederick George...?" he echoed in disbelief.

Ron nodded gravely. "Mum and Dad really brought it on themselves, you know," he whispered.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Five: The Ancient and Most Noble House**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Four_

Okay, so the bit with the Chocolate Frog Cards was shameless revenge directed at the canon... (But the setup on Protean Charms is worth something, I think.)

Also got the intro to the Black House; the Blue Room was invented at a suggestion from my friend Kati-chan, and, as mentioned in Hand-me-Downs, the reason for the color is that according to folk belief, blue and especially a blue door wards against evil. Actually HMD has a lot to do with work on the house, so if you've read it, you know just where a lot of these things come from and/or are already familiar with them.

It was also at the very end of that story that Fred and George found out about Moony and Padfoot; it kind of appeared there as the throwaway "leave 'em laughing" cast to the ending, and I actually plan to do more with it here. I enjoy letting the twins spoil their Maestro and generally show a bit of warmth that they don't so often get.

And a first taste of life at HQ includes a first parental territory dispute between Molly and Sirius. This will get worse.

  



	5. The Ancient and Most Noble House

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Five  
 _The Ancient and Most Noble House_**

After breakfast, everyone went upstairs to bed. With only three beds in the Blue Room, Hermione and Ginny squeezed into one together and left Ron and Harry the other two. Harry was glad to have one to himself; as he lay down he remembered listening in on the Order's meeting, and now in the silence he couldn't escape thinking about it...

Someone named Dedalus Diggle... The name sounded familiar, but Harry couldn't place it; he didn't think it was someone he'd known well, but it was at least someone he had heard of. Whoever he was, he must be a member of the Order, on guard duty protecting whatever Voldemort was after if Ron's guess was right, and he'd been caught by the Ministry and was facing six months in Azkaban, surrounded by Dementors... Not only caught, but they had said Diggle was 'incoherent' when he was found, and that only the doctors at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries would know how to take proper care of him. Had the Death Eaters gotten to Diggle? Had they tortured him with the Cruciatus Curse and driven him insane - as they had done to the parents of Harry's classmate Neville Longbottom?

When Voldemort had returned, he had cast the Cruciatus Curse on Harry more than once, and even now in this warm bed, Harry trembled at the memory of that agony, like his body being pulled apart with white-hot hooks. Dumbledore had told him about Neville's parents, that they had been driven insane by that Unforgivable Curse and had lived at St. Mungo's ever since. The very thought of it made Harry's eyes ache with sadness - and anger. He couldn't even begin to decide what he would do if he ever had his wand pointed at the people guilty of such a thing...

But now his eyes ached not just from that, but from exhaustion; his body felt heavier and heavier until at last it broke the tether of those dark thoughts and he sank deep into sleep.

* * *

  
Harry tried waking up several times that afternoon; his consciousness would bob to the surface, but he didn't want to move, and with the room still and quiet, he just let himself sink down again. The fact that the light through the window grew milder, not brighter, every time he saw it didn't help matters; it made his brain feel fuzzy and tired. When he finally came up again and saw the light of the fireplace through his eyelids, heard his friends talking, and felt a warm body weighing on his legs, he at last pulled himself up and blinked his eyes open.

He found his glasses and put them on, and when the warm weight at the end of the bed came into focus, Harry was happily unsurprised to find that it was a massive black dog - Sirius in animal form - curled up around his feet. As Harry climbed out of bed, Sirius lifted his head and yawned hugely, rolling his tongue.

Harry had to ask the others out of the room so that he could get dressed, and in taking off his pyjamas he found the piece of candy Fred and George had slipped him; wanting to hurry out and join the others but knowing he'd never find it loose in his trunk, he just put it in his phial-case. As he pulled on jeans and a sweater - one Mrs. Weasley had knitted for him for a Christmas gift - he heard them talking outside in the hall.

"I've gotta ask, what is all of this?" Ron said.

Harry heard a soft _pop!_ as his godfather turned human again. "Oh, Remus got all that blue paint, said it was a protective color. He started painting protective symbols on the walls and then we just got carried away. We were up too late and getting silly..."

"Looks like you had fun," Ginny said.

"That makes the protection stronger, or so the Professor said - and you have got to admit, it's harder to feel threatened with all of this on the walls. We've still got a bit of the paint left; ought to pour it out sometime and just cover the place in blue footprints."

"I hadn't heard of anything like that before" Hermione said. "I'll have to ask Professor Lupin about it..."

Harry smiled to himself as he tied his shoes, thinking he heard a note of distress in her voice at encountering something she didn't know from her books.

"Well, it's pretty old fashioned Defense," Sirius explained. "One of our professors used to stress it a lot, though."

Harry glanced in the mirror over one of the dressers, decided his hair was acceptable, and went out into the hall. "Hey."

"Hey, Harry," Ron greeted.

"Rise and shine," Ginny said.

"Feel up to helping out a bit?" Sirius asked.

The prospect of helping the Order woke Harry up a bit more. "Yeah, of course."

"Don't get excited, Harry, it's just housecleaning," Sirius told him. "There's all sorts of junk laying about the drawing room, and that's where the visual aid is - since I promised you some explanations."

That brought Harry around even further, and he and his friends followed Sirius down to the second floor balconey. The doors there opened into the luxuriant-but-dilapidated drawing room. At first it only smelled musty and looked smudgily gray in the dim light, but then Sirius pointed his wand toward the ceiling. " _Lumiere_." A huge, elaborate chandelier of tarnished gold and grimy crystal illuminated the room, and they could see the extent of the damage. The curtains were moth-eaten, the walls festooned with cobwebs and pockmarked with waterstains. The once-plush upholstery of the chairs scattered about was now full of holes, peppered with bits of stuffing and what looked like mouse droppings, but as Harry passed one of the arm chairs, he didn't think any mouse would make the whispering noise he heard come out of it. The floor was also cluttered with boxes of various junk; the boxes themselves looked less dusty, so he guessed that the Order must have deposited debris in here while cleaning the rest of the house.

The room was a crosswise oblong that spanned the width of the house; on each of its short sides, a large black marble fireplace stood between two tall, narrow windows. The long wall where the doors opened was lined with chests of drawers and display cabinets filled with strange objects: oddly-twisted dried plants and fungi, animals preserved whole or in fragments. On one mirrored table, Harry noticed a glass globe containing the pickled remains of what was unmistakeably a three-headed snake, although the liquid was now cloudy and the creature had settled to the bottom and begun to go to bits over the years. Flanking the decaying treble-snake and scattered about the display space were sculptures also, most in black marble or dark, gnarled wood, all at least vaguely disturbing and threatening.

Harry turned away from all of that to find Sirius facing the other long wall, which was covered by a large velvet curtain; once probably deep purple, the fabric was now faded to a sooty lavendar. Sirius raised his wand to it. " _Toujours Pur!_ "

The curtain parted in the center and swept to the ends of the room, raising a great cloud of dust that sent them all into coughing and sneezing fits. When the haze cleared, Harry looked up to find the entire wall covered by a huge tapestry: a genealogy chart running the full length of the room. At the top center, ornate, shining golden letters proudly announced,

 _The Ancient And Most Noble House of  
 **BLACK**  
' Toujours Pur '_

The letters of the motto must have been enchanted, because the instant Harry saw the phrase on the tapestry, he knew just what it meant: "Toujours Pur: _Always Pure_."

"My 'Noble' family," Sirius proclaimed with tart irony.

Harry's eyes flitted about the tapestry, failing to pick up the entries of so many strangers, but he was assaulted by the name over and over: " _... Black ... Black ... Black ..._ " Precious embroidery embellished the fabric, yet it was pocked here and there with holes - not as if moths had eaten at it, but as if holes had intentionally been burned with a lit cigar. Scattered through it also were other surnames Harry recognised. Some he was sure he had seen on Chocolate Frog Cards, others were more close to home: Karkaroff, Fudge, Trelawney, Malfoy...

" _Malfoy?_ " Harry exclaimed. "You're related to the Malfoys?"

"Oh, I'm related to all those people," Sirius said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "All the 'great' pureblood families are always marrying each other to consolidate the money and the snobbery, and Black blood was the richest and most snobbish of them all, or at least Mum thought so." He walked down toward the end of the chart. "After hearing her, I would have thought you'd seen enough of the house already to know what sort of people I came from."

Harry picked his way among the chairs and boxes and followed Sirius, staring. He had seen enough of the house to know, but somehow he just couldn't believe it. Sirius had been his father's best friend, known in his school days for mischief and pranks. He was a member of the order of the Phoenix. _He's my godfather!_ How could his family have been people like the Malfoys?

Sirius came to the right end of the tapestry. There the forking chart ended in a fringe of gilded names, where all the others were stamped in black. He scanned it up and down and at last jabbed a finger at it, right through one of the cigar-sized holes. "Aha! There I am."

"That burn-mark?" Ron asked. He and Ginny appeared over Harry's shoulders; Hermione was examining the tapestry further up, but turned to look occasionally so they knew she was listening.

"That's right," Sirius said with a twisted smile, almost brightly. "Mum disowned me, blasted me right off. I wish I could call it one of my proudest achievements, but the fact is it was the one time I hadn't done anything."

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"It was over Dad. Around Christmas of my sixth year in school, Mum was having one of her social parties, and Dad excused himself and went upstairs - I don't suppose anyone will ever know why..." Sirius took a deep breath. "...Put his wand to his head and blew his brains out."

Harry gasped.

"My goodness!" Hermione cried; that brought her over toward them.

"There he is, and Mum," Sirius continued, pointing to the pair of names just to the left of his: "Orion Edward Black" and "Estelle Marion Black née Chandler." "He hadn't seen me in years when he died, but Mum was sure it was because of me that he did it, because I was such a disgrace to the family. Every time that portrait goes off she brings it up; I would've had to tell you before long..."

Harry didn't know what to say and just stared at the tapestry. The line leading from Sirius's parents to the burn-mark forked, leading also to "Regulus Valerian Black;" a jewelled brooch was affixed next to it. "Your brother?" Harry asked, pointing.

"Yes, Regulus. A much better son than me, as I was constantly reminded..."

"But," Hermione said, regarding the name gravely, "if living people are in gold, and the rest are black..."

Harry realised that she was right; only the most recent names were gilded, the ones new enough to be people living now. There was even a little gold residue around Sirius's hole, but Regulus's name was written in black.

Sirius nodded, frowning. "If not for that, he at least would've taken the house off my hands. Regulus always thought the way Mum did about everything, including the glories of pure wizard blood. The idiot became a Death Eater, died in a battle with the Order."

"Were your parents...?" Harry asked.

"No, but believe me, Mum was proud of him when he joined up. That brooch is one of hers; I suppose she wanted to mark him as her favorite." He unfastened the pin, and it struggled in his hand until he cast _"Finite"_ on it, then he tossed it into a nearby box.

"I used to joke," he said with a bitter chuckle, "that Mum would have joined Voldemort, but he wouldn't quote her a price on the Death entrée, and she couldn't risk being caught Eating anything at less than twenty galleons a plate. She didn't leave me a knut, though - only left me the house because letting it pass outside the family name would've hurt her pride even slightly more. All the money went to St. Mungo's, so at least it's doing some good, but they probably had to name a ward after her or something..."

"So you don't have any money...?" Harry wondered, then remembered - "But you bought me the Firebolt!" Might Sirius have spent everything he had on the gift?

"No, don't worry, my great aunt left me some gold - not the family fortune, but enough to make Mum choke." He looked further up the tree and indicated another burned hole. "There she is, burned off even before I was born: Great Aunt Lyra. After she broke from the family she went by the name LaNoire."

"Lyra LaNoire, the voice actress?" Ron questioned. "She was really big when the Wizard Wireless was new and everybody listened to it," he told Harry.

"I read that she was the first pureblood witch to play a Muggle-born character," Hermione added.

"What do you think got her blown off here?" Sirius questioned. "But it's good to know that the mischief in my blood didn't just spring up out of nowhere..."

"Hey, there's Tonks!" Ginny exclaimed, pointing. "-And there's _Draco?_ "

Harry followed her pointing finger and did indeed see "Draco Malfoy" there in glittering gold letters.

"Ah, yes, he is Cousin Cissy's son, isn't he?" Sirius said.

Harry and Ron both had to snigger at anyone calling Draco's mother, Narcissa Malfoy, "Cousin Cissy." Harry had seen her one time, a year ago. She had been tall, thin, and blonde, with what he now recognised as the Blacks' aristocratically angled features and a disdainful scowl that went beyond haughty into the impression that something smelly was permanently fixed just under her nose.

"There they are, Uncle Alphard's three girls," Sirius said. He had traced the tree up to the fork at his paternal grandparents and back down to indicate a column of three names with attached in-laws: "Bellatrix Lestrange née Black" with "Rodolphus Lestrange," "Andromeda Tonks née Black" with "Theodore Tonks," and "Narcissa Malfoy née Black" with "Lucius Malfoy." A line from that last pair led naturally to "Draco Malfoy."

"Hm, looks like Annie got reinstated somehow," Sirius said. "When we were kids, she was a sweetheart. Cissy was always an insufferable priss, though. Of course Bella was the worst. She joined up with Voldemort, and I know he never had any reason to complain about her; she and her husband both got life sentences in Azkaban."

Harry recognised the Lestranges' names as Death Eaters - some of the very ones who had tortured Neville Longbottom's parents. Bellatrix Lestrange, the cruel, haughty woman with the black hair and heavy eyelids whom he had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve, in the Headmaster's memories of the trial... Harry's mind simply couldn't absorb the idea that she was Sirius's first cousin. He was able to distract himself when he followed the line from Andromeda and Theodore to "Nymphodora Tonks" and a laugh struggled out of his chest. "Tonks' name is 'Nymphodora'?"

"No one gets to call her 'Nymph' but me," was Sirius's reply. "Her parents got married right out of school. They were both Ravenclaw Prefects - as far as I know, the rest of the family were all Slytherins except me. Annie was disowned over the marriage, since Ted was Muggle-born. I might not have snapped that summer if she'd been around..."

"'Snapped'? What do you mean?" Harry prompted.

"Well, you can imagine what it was like, growing up surrounded by those people," Sirius said. "Dad was always dark and quiet; he never quite knew what to do if he had to relate to another human being. Mum had all her ways of pulling the rest of the family's strings, so she never had to say outright what she expected, but we generally figured out what it was and always knew we'd have the worst of it if we didn't do it, whether we could figure it out or not... Both of them and Regulus, and all their friends, everyone just desperately pretended that there was nothing wrong with any of them. I suspect most of those 'great' families were every bit as pathetic as mine, but they had their club to cover it all up and assure each other that they were better than everybody else. Somehow I managed not to buy into it, thank heavens, but the older I got the more that just being around it all made me feel like falling down in fits or tearing myself to pieces."

Harry certainly could imagine how that would have felt. In some ways it sounded very much like the Dursleys, always insisting that they were better than everyone else, turning up their noses at anyone who was different or odd or whom they disapproved of, and falling over themselves to prove how upright and ordinary they were, when they had known all along that they had a young wizard in their midst... And to think that just a few days before, he'd been telling himself Sirius couldn't possibly understand what it was like at Privet Drive!

"It was more than I could do to keep my mouth shut, and I had the most awful rows with the lot of them," Sirius went on. "Mum would overdraught on sleeping potion a few times a year because I'd shot off my mouth in front of company or some such thing. When it came time to go to Hogwarts, they gave me the standard debut party, but I screamed at the whole room that if they were sending me off somewhere to make me like them I'd rather run away and go to a Muggle School. Mum actually cut her wrists that time.

"- But with her, all that kind of thing was just a ploy to pull everyone around by the guts; I was the only one who ever figured that out. She never would've done anything that would really kill her. I hear even when she fell sick, she fought it to the bitter end out of sheer spite. ...Or maybe she was just bitter about Dad finally stealing her act."

He paused for a moment to straighten out his frown, then turned to Harry. "It's a good thing I met your father on the train. His family had all been Gryffindors and he told me his uncle's stories about the trouble they got into and what fun it was, enough that I wanted to go in there with him. The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, said I'd do well there, but..." he chuckled. "I threatened to tear it to bits on the spot in front of the entire school if it did. I think I would have, too, or else actually run away..."

"Maybe that's why the Hat looks so shabby now," Ron suggested. "Maybe it didn't always know to listen to people like you."

"Could be," Sirius laughed.

Hermione held her hand to her mouth, though, and Harry was more grave, as well. For him, it sounded a strange echo. The Sorting Hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin as well, and had only made him a Gryffindor - as his father and Sirius had been - because, like Sirius, he had insisted that he didn't _want_ to be a Slytherin. He might not have known enough to do so if he hadn't met Draco Malfoy before the Sorting and instantly disliked his haughty manner, or if he hadn't met Ron on the train and immediately hit it off with him...

"During the holidays, Cousin Annie did a lot to keep me sane and quiet and out of trouble," Sirius continued. "When they called a meeting of the Self-Admiration Society, I could just split off in a corner with her to talk and hide from the rest of the room and all the garbage they spouted. Just listening to them was more than I could take: 'You won't believe it; this week I found out that poor people _exist!_ '" he mocked. "'And sometimes they even _have children_ or _own small objects_ \- couldn't you just _die?_ '"

"'Oh, yes, I totally agree - it's _mortifying!_ '" Ginny played along, complete with the back of her hand draped swooningly on her forehead.

"Exactly," Sirius said. "-And the summer she was cut out was the same summer Regulus was about to start school. Of course James and I had already built up quite a reputation, so I had to stand around at all those awful parties listening to Mum just barely bothering to sprinkle a little tact on it: 'This one will be much better than the other, we promise'... It didn't take much of that before I went off. Mum had one of her episodes, Dad and I came to blows and I got a black eye out of it..."

Hermione pressed her hand to her mouth a little harder.

"...And I decided I'd had enough. That very night, I made off with Dad's broom and ran away and never looked back; flew all the way to James' house in Manchester. Don't even ask me how I managed not to get lost. Of course I told him what had happened. I didn't want his folks to know, but he had enough brains to snitch on me that time, and the Potters took me in from then on, treated me just like another son. I don't know what they told my family, but they made it clear that I was welcome at their place anytime, no matter what my parents thought of it, so I just stayed there and never set foot in this old dungeon again until this summer."

"Your father hit you...?" Hermione questioned softly.

"Oh, only... twice including that," Sirius said; he seemed to take the subject much more casually. "I admit, I hit him first both times."

Harry agreed more with Hermione's assessment, and was happy to note that his father's family apparently had, too.

"It kind of seems to be thinning out," Ron pointed out awkwardly, looking across the tapestry. Harry skimmed the length of it and had to agree. Toward the middle it fanned out to perhaps two dozen names, but as it came toward where they were standing, it narrowed again until the column representing the current generation contained only Draco and Tonks, and neither of them actually had the name "Black." Harry looked back up the chart to try to find "Black" written in gold, but it wasn't anywhere, except as the three sisters' forfeited maiden names - and the trace of glitter around Sirius's burn-mark.

Sirius nodded. "I'm the only Black left as a matter of fact, and at this point, getting married and carrying on the name is just about the last thing I intend to do." He smiled to himself. "It is satisfying to know that I'll put an end to the whole nonsense, especially with the kind of last word I'll be, in all my illustrious ancestors' opinions."

He at last turned from the tapestry, took out his wand, and looked over a wingbacked chair. "Molly said she'd seen some Doxies in the upholstery in here. Just in case..." He motioned Harry and the others over to him. One by one he cast an armoring charm on them, " _Loricatus_ ," and it made the air feel strangely stagnant around Harry's skin. Sirius explained that it was a spell to block minor physical assaults - not too useful for combat, especially not against wizards, but enough to protect against Doxy bites or annoying siblings. He led them to start shaking chairs and tossing off the cushions to chase out anything living in them, which indeed turned out to include a number of Doxies - small fairies with beetle-like wings and a poisonous bite, covered in black bristly hair.

Emboldened by the armoring charm, Harry decided to favor curiosity over apprehension, and he shook the chair that had made that un-mouse-like sound. What crawled out of it looked at first like a slimy black worm, or perhaps large flies walking in a line, but then Harry recognised it as a very small black snake, about the size of a thin pencil, with two ridges of feathers along its back. Indeed, with his gift of Parseltongue - imprinted on him so long ago by Voldemort's curse - he could hear its whispery little voice: _"trying to sssleep... nasssty noisy light..."_ It slithered up onto an arm of the chair, spread out the feathers into winglike sails, and glided away into a box.

"Oh, a quetzicalle," Hermione identified it.

"Say, Sirius," Ginny said, "when you told Harry you'd explain things, you said you'd answer his questions 'about whatever'..."

That was right! "Does that mean you'll tell me about what's going on, what the Order's doing?" Harry asked.

"I'll tell you as much as I can," he said. He tossed the cushion off his chair and kicked it a few times as it stood up against a box. "Probably better to wait until we're alone for that, though. Molly wouldn't like it. She doesn't really have any say in what I tell _you_ , but..."

"But he'll just tell us as soon as you're done telling him," Ginny argued. "Why bother putting it off?"

"Yeah," Ron concurred as he and his sister shook another chair between them.

"If it's important, then the less times it's repeated the better," Hermione argued, surprising Harry. "Every person it has to go through has some chance of being overheard or getting things confused, right?"

Sirius scratched his messy hair and frowned thoughtfully. "If Molly asks, I waited for you to hear it from Harry - fair enough?"

"Oh, yesyes!" Ginny said. She and Ron came back over next to Harry and Hermione, and the four of them clustered around Sirius to listen.

They all stood around for a moment before Sirius looked at Harry, and Harry realised that everyone was waiting for him to ask the questions. "So, what have Voldemort and the Death Eaters been doing since he came back?" Harry asked. "Why haven't they made any attacks or anything?"

Sirius looked very thoughtful and walked over to another chair - a particularly smelly one as it turned out - while he considered his answer. "He's working more in the shadows for now, getting things in place for when he makes his move, gathering allies and such."

"Like the Dementors," Harry said.

"Apparently."

"I heard that the Order was stopping him from something," Harry said. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to head him off from gathering support," Sirius answered, "trying to get some allies of our own..." He wordlessly shook the chair and kicked it, but Harry waited as he seemed to be mulling over saying more.

"There's also some _thing_ that he wants," he added at last. "He'll get it before making a move if he can, and if he does get his hands on it, it will put us in a very bad spot. The Ministry ought to be protecting it, but they can't guard against Voldemort as long as they believe that he's still gone, so the Order has been picking up the slack."

"What is it? What are you guarding?" Harry asked eagerly.

Sirius stopped working with the chair and looked him in the eyes, very seriously. "It's something you mustn't know about, Harry. Don't bother asking me. That's the one thing I will absolutely not tell you."

"Why not?"

"I said I'd tell you everything I could; this is something I can't. Can you just trust me on that?"

Putting it in those terms, Harry had to nod; he definitely trusted Sirius, but it was strange and stunning to be told so directly that his godfather was keeping a secret from him - a great and important secret. Harry couldn't help it. _I want to know!_ He was still looking into Sirius's eyes...

Cold late-autumn wind blew on his face, carrying the scent of pulverised dust and char. His body burned with a sick, trembling fire that the chill in the air couldn't touch, but the breeze lifted his silky hair aside to kiss the nape of his neck and sent an added shiver through him. With one hand he clung to the arm of an immense black-bearded man - Harry recognised Hagrid, Hogwarts' gamekeeper, but he looked somewhat younger than the Hagrid Harry knew. Nestled deep in the cradle of his massive arms was a blanket-wrapped bundle, a sliver of a baby's bright flushed face, a flash of red blood - _My blood..._ The bundle kicked and squalled.

"Give him to me," Harry heard himself say, reaching toward the baby. "I'll take good care of him."

Hagrid shook his head and tried to be gentle with his great rough voice. "I'd give him ter yeh if I could, but I can't give him ter nobody."

Through the blanket, Harry felt his fingers just brush the baby's foot before Hagrid gathered him up a little closer, out of reach.

"Dumbledore done tol' me Harry's ter go ter his aunt an' uncle."

Harry jumped back in shock. His heel caught against a box and sent him flailing for balance, and he would have fallen if not for Ron grabbing him and hauling him forward again.

"Harry, mate, what happened?" Ron asked.

"Nothing... nothing."

"You look like you just saw a ghost!" Hermione insisted.

"I just had a shudder, I'm fine!" Harry told her. He desperately looked around for Sirius, afraid that his godfather might contradict that.

"You're sure you're all right?" Sirius asked. He came around the chair and took Harry's shoulder, but there was an odd look on his face, and he spoke to the design on Harry's sweater rather than his face.

"Yeah, I'm sure..."

" ** _Eww!_** " Ginny squealed. Harry looked up; she had lifted up the chair-cushion and uncovered a nest of dead Puffskeins. All five of them clasped their noses and fled across the room as the source of that chair's strange odor became violently clear.

"Remind me not to sit in that one," Ron remarked with disgust once they were clear of the smell.

"Oh, none of these are any good," Sirius said. "I was going to toss them once they stopped moving - just pitch it over the balconey; might as well."

"You mean...?" Ron questioned, pointing toward the drawing room doors standing open.

"Down into the foyer, right."

The four students stared at him.

"Why not?"

"I don't guess there's any reason we shouldn't, is there?" Ron realised, breaking into a grin.

Sirius crossed back to the chairful of rotting Puffskeins and pointed his wand at it. " _Mobiliscamnum._ " It levitated about a foot into the air, and he led it at wandpoint out one of the doors. A moment later Harry heard a wonderful crash and a general uproar of disapproval from the portraits downstairs. Sirius's mother was silent, however; apparently no flying debris had struck her curtains.

Ron and Ginny each took an arm of the chair they had been shaking before and together, both grinning, hauled it out onto the balconey and threw it over with another crash. Hermione picked up the cushions that had been left behind - gingerly handling the one that had covered the dead animals - and followed.

Sirius was the first to come back in, and Harry paired with him to take out another of the chairs they had already shaken clear of pests. As they were lifting it at the balconey railing, Harry remembered something else he wanted to know. "Who's Dedalus Diggle?" he asked Sirius.

Sirius let the chair down to rest with the cross supports of its legs on the rail. He looked slyly at Harry. "I _thought_ I heard a fly on the wall last night."

Harry felt the heat of his face flushing red; how could he have been so thoughtless to ask? "Well... I just thought I'd heard of him and the name happened to come across my head and I couldn't place it," he fumbled.

Sirius's eyes were saying "right, and I'm the Queen Mother," but his mouth smiled briefly before he became more grave. The moment of silence was broken by the others loudly shaking out another chair in the drawing room. "Dedalus is a member of the Order. He was... injured on guard duty, and the Ministry arrested him."

"What for?" Harry asked, still trying to angle in at the secret Sirius was holding back.

"Being somewhere the Ministry doesn't want us," Sirius answered. "That's all I'll-"

" ** _SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK!_** "

For a moment, Harry thought that Estelle's portrait had been set off, but the sound wasn't coming from below; it was coming from the stairway, over Sirius's shoulder. He turned around to look, and Harry leaned to see past him.

It was Mrs. Weasley.

Harry let his grip on the chair loosen, not realising that Sirius had done the same until its weight slipped out of his fingers and it went tumbling over the rail. Harry looked over to see it hit, and this time bits of wood did fly up under the balconey, at the back wall of the foyer-

" _ **SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK! BLOOD-TRAITOR!** I CAN ONLY THANK THE STARS YOUR FATHER DIDN'T LIVE TO SEE OUR NOBLE NAME LEFT IN **YOUR DISGRACEFUL FILTH-POLLUTED HANDS!**_ "

Sirius clapped his hands over his ears as they all fled up the stairs, including Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, who dashed out of the drawing room to follow on Harry's heels. They were met in the third floor hallway by Lupin, who had just burst out of the master bedroom in his night-robe with his hair still mussed from the pillow, wand in hand. "What's going on down there?" he asked.

"Uh, we were... throwing chairs," Hermione explained lamely.

Sirius let himself fall back to lean on the wall, coincidentally just up against the figure of the great blue dog. "You're sure you want to stay with your godfather now...?" he asked Harry.

His tone hadn't been all that serious, but Harry took no chances and gave him a squeeze around the chest. "Quite sure."

"Aww." Over Mrs. Black's continuing tirade, Harry could just hear Ginny's coo of approval.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Six: My Lady's Lowest Servant**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Five_

Yes, I know that in the book it was "Noble and Most Ancient," but it just seems more natural to me the other way 'round, and it's my story - I'm the god, I'M THE GOD, BWAHAHAHA-ah. :ahem:

Still kind of heavy on the exposition, but at least I'm not covering the same ground over and over; last time was the "What I Did On My Summer Vacation Special," this time was the "Sirius Backstory Showcase." I may have levered in more of the backstory I have for him than was really necessary (I'm sure you can tell I've put way too much thought into it), but part of the appeal of HP novels is the dropping of details like that... Again, Hand-me-Downs went into more detail on some of Sirius's past with his (supremely messed-up -;;) family.

Also please recall that Half-Blood Prince does not apply here, so neither does the "R.A.B." issue with Regulus, who IMU turns out to be "R.V.B." The circumstances of his death are also different; much as I hate to sacrifice a rare flash of humanity on the villain side, the backstory that came to me included a downright-evil Regulus, and with a theme of the series (supposedly) being that the kind of person you are comes down to your choices not your genes, there is a thematic advantage in pushing Sirius and Regulus further apart on the Good-and-Evil-o-Meter.

But in any case, I should just admit that to you, as the reader, Sirius's big secret, well... isn't. Firstly, I'm figuring most people reading this have read Order of the Phoenix and can tell by now that that much of the climactic set-piece is staying. Secondly, if you've read HMD, at some point in that story Sirius practically comes out and says it. Thirdly is something too painfully obvious to even mention. :points up toward the top of this file: The first point is beyond my control (I can't Obliviate OotP out of you and I simply can't tell my story without that much commonality) and sufficient enough that I didn't worry about the other two. You get to watch Harry struggle with the Big Secret, and even if you don't get to wonder what it is, you do get to wonder what it says (because as I mentioned in the initial notes, I changed it) and perhaps also why Sirius is so intent on Harry not knowing.

More generally, the HP cast is often so secretive that it occurred to me to actually make control of information a theme of the story. When is it justified? Does it work? While he does have his share of secrets and "when you're older"s, what I was finding here is that Sirius generally distrusts the notion of keeping the kids in the dark (he can remember _being one of the Marauders_ and how well that bit worked on him), so when he has a crucial secret he has to keep from Harry, he hides it in plain sight and outright admits "There's something sitting here that you can't know about." This may be a nobler approach, but it's probably a less workable one...

  



	6. My Lady's Lowest Servant

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Six  
 _My Lady's Lowest Servant_**

It turned out that Mrs. Weasley had been coming up to tell them dinner was ready, but once Lupin had dressed, she sent Harry and his friends downstairs under their former teacher's supervision; "...I need to have a little talk with Mr. Black," she said, and Sirius rolled his eyes behind her back. Harry desperately wanted to know what passed between them, but didn't dare try to sneak a listen under Lupin's nose, so they all just went downstairs and washed their hands very thoroughly before sitting down to Mrs. Weasley's meat pie.

Harry refused to enjoy it too much; apparently she was in favor of keeping him in the dark. He had already pushed back his plate when Mrs. Weasley and Sirius came to join them. Harry was glad to note that Sirius didn't seem much worse for the wear, but he still sullenly resisted Molly's insistence that he eat more.

Harry spent the following days working on cleaning up Sirius's house together with his godfather and his best friends, and despite Mrs. Weasley's continuing tensions with her twin sons and Sirius, plus the unimagined malices and aggravations hidden in every crevice of the house, he was wonderfully happy. He helped tend Buckbeak the Hippogriff, whom Sirius and the others were boarding in the attic. He and Ron talked Quidditch and racing brooms. Hedwig and Pigwidgeon flew in and out after them, and even Hermione's ginger cat Crookshanks was a delighting presence, although he kept turning up with dead animals in his mouth; a still-squirming quetzicalle with its head chewed off was his most gruesome prize, and Harry hoped it wasn't the same one he'd seen in the sitting room.

Ron once smuggled a stray issue of Muggle Machines magazine over under his sweater - "Dad used to take it, but Mum binned them all and made him drop. We still find some now and then, though," Ron explained.

"Enough for Mum to wrap Fred and George's stuff in torn-out pages when she tosses it," Ginny added.

— And Harry and Hermione did their best to explain what all the vehicles and machinery pictured did. Hermione was ahead of Harry in that she knew the difference between a bulldozer and a power-loader, but neither of them understood why even a Muggle would want a leaf-blower. Uncle Vernon's had been used once, then mouldered in the garage ever since while the Dursleys hired uniformed professionals to do any serious lawn work.

Cleaning, while usually an unenviable task, was sometimes interesting; on one occasion they found a nest of pink, rubbery-looking, miniature hedgehogs living underwater in an upstairs toilet. Sirius identified them as Water-Knarls, and Mrs. Weasley's copy of _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ — they tried to ignore Lockhart's self-consciously charming grin from the cover-photo as he had been another of their ill-fated Defense professors — revealed that they were harmless, even helpful and fastidiously clean animals who lived in the pipes of wizard homes, where their bristle-brush-like spines dislodged debris which the Water-Knarls fed on, keeping the pipes clean and preventing drain-clogs. The book then warned against unthinkingly putting potions down drains where they might be living, recounting an instance where, from the pipes beneath an absent-minded Potions Master's home, there emerged a Water-Knarl the size of a bus that terrorised the city of Wolverhampton for several hours before Lockhart singlehandedly brought it to heel, enlisted the help of the Puddlemere United Quidditch team to airlift the animal to the Scamander Zoo and Research Institute for Fantastical Creatures in London, then, in a masterful solo oratory, calmed the town full of panicked Muggles and convinced them that the monster they had seen was only the picture showing at a large-screen drive-up cinema, thus saving the Ministry from a highly difficult and expensive Obliviation and Disinformation campaign.

For when they got into inappropriate areas of the plumbing, Lockhart's book suggested a spell to heat the water and kill them, but Hermione wouldn't stand for it and insisted that she would sit guard on the pot all day if necessary to protect the animals. The book was of no further help, and after some awkward consideration, Harry thought to ask Professor Lupin what to do — he had taught them about all sorts of Dark Creatures in his Defense class and seemed generally very knowledgeable about animals, so Harry went to the master bedroom and hestitantly prodded him awake. Once Lupin roused himself enough to understand the question, he told Harry to handle the babies, that the mother would find the human scent on them and move them somewhere more private; he said it as if barely having to think and then rolled over and settled into the pillow again. Back in the upstairs lavatory they did indeed handle the little creatures amid disgusted grimaces from Ron and appreciative coos from Ginny as one scoured her palm with its toothless mouth. And then, again, they all washed their hands very thoroughly before dinner.

For Harry, it seemed almost too good to be true to think that this was his home now, with Sirius and Professor Lupin living here and Hermione and the Weasleys coming every day, she and Ron staying over more nights than not. If Harry didn't dare believe it, he at least made up the difference by indulging the notion as a pleasant fantasy.

He barely even thought to be surprised at how quickly the resentments of his incarceration at the Dursleys' melted away, and in fact he half-forgot about the trouble with the Ministry, although when it resurfaced in his mind he had a nasty start, realising he had left the letter back at Privet Drive and didn't know when his hearing was. Mr. Weasley looked into it for him and came back with the news that it was a week and a half away, and in speaking to him, Harry could see what Ron meant about his father's harassment at work beginning to show. Mr. Weasley seemed more absentminded than usual, and Harry thought that he had lost some weight in the last few months; certainly he had lost some hair.

As Harry lay in bed that night, the hearing looming ten days away already gave him a sense of dread. What would it mean to be expelled from Hogwarts? Firstly that he would be cut off from his friends while they were there, and probably it meant being doomed to a life as the Dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron, or the Knight Bus Conductor, or some similarly thankless job. But the idea of expulsion didn't squeeze his guts as tightly as it had when he had first gotten the Ministry's letter. _After all,_ he thought, _I've still got lots of gold from my parents in the vault at Gringotts. Apparently Sirius has a lot, too. If we were careful, that would probably be enough to get by..._ More importantly, expulsion no longer meant an eternity at Privet Drive. He could live here, with Sirius; he would get the Order to teach him what he would need, and he would help them fight Voldemort. That did a tremendous amount to lighten the threatened sentence.

But the prospect was far from ideal. Harry had begun to dream about what great things he wanted to do after his school years were done — the fake Moody's insistence that he would be an excellent Auror had lodged firmly in his mind, and he had read and re-read the all-too-brief section in _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ regarding the professional teams' recruiting practices. Expulsion from Hogwarts would mean all those possibilities gone, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. _It wouldn't be the end of the world..._ Harry told himself that over and over as he lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, although it was only mildly soothing.

The next morning saw them all working in the drawing room again under the gaze of the Black family tapestry, whose presence Harry found strangely unnerving. Fred and George followed them up from breakfast and even helped sort through boxes for a few minutes before getting sidetracked attempting to append "The Amazing Bouncing Ferret" to Draco Malfoy's gilded name. The explanation of the joke — the fake Moody had once become annoyed with Draco last school year and transfigured him into a ferret — led onto the subject of anecdotes, and soon the twins were cajoling Sirius for stories about his Hogwarts days. He was one of the twins' "maestros" too, after all, even if he was more comfortable with their praise and thus less fun to heap it on than Lupin.

Sirius was just at the climax of a story in which he had used the Reverse Gravity charm and become stranded on the ceiling of Hogwarts' great hall during dinner — Harry's father James was streaking in on a broomstick barely too late; the charm wore off, and Sirius fell but made sure at least to hit the Slytherin table, snapping it in the middle and sending food flying in all directions — when Mrs. Weasley came into the room and took Fred and George back to the Burrow despite their protests. By the look on their mother's face, Harry supposed that she didn't want Sirius's stories giving the twins any new ideas.

After they had left, Harry, Ron, and Ginny pressed Sirius to continue, but his eyes had taken on a far-away look. "That was all such a long time ago," he said dully, and Hermione stepped in to change the subject.

The tapestry had resisted Fred and George's attempts to change it, and they hadn't managed to do so before their mother took them away, so it was left for Ginny to write "The Amazing Bouncing Ferret" in gold letters on a scrap of parchment and attach it under Draco's name with pins. "How did this get back on here?" she said as she climbed down from the armoire she had been using to reach. Harry turned and found that Mrs. Black's brooch had been replaced next to Regulus's name. Ginny took it and started to unfasten it again.

"Ginny, wait—!" Sirius shouted.

But too late. Suddenly the brooch flew out of Ginny's hand and across the room — straight at Hermione, pin-point first, and she screamed as it came at her.

 _"Finite!"_ Sirius commanded, pointing his wand; the brooch went limp and landed on the floor at Hermione's feet with a jangle. He crossed to it in three long strides and picked it up. "Dear Old Mummy enchanted a lot of her jewelry to attack any Muggle blood it came near," he explained. "When we first opened up her jewelry-box, Bill and I had to pick about a dozen of the accursed things out of Remus."

"Professor Lupin?" Ron questioned. "I didn't know he was..."

"Half-blood," Sirius said. Harry felt a little strange, not at the revelation about Lupin, but at the thought that the brooch could easily have attacked him — and that it had gone after Hermione instead.

"But how'd it get back on the tapestry?" Ginny asked. "You took it down the other day."

"I've got a pretty good idea who put it back," Sirius growled. He cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted. " _Kreacher! Kreacher come here!_ "

Harry heard a small clattering sound, as if someone were fiddling with a latch, and looked around to find it. The handle of a cabinet which he had previously tried and found locked turned seemingly of its own accord and slowly opened. The figure that emerged was quite small, little higher than Harry's knee, and shrivelled and leathery, with large pointed ears and the same almost-batlike upturned spade of a nose that was common to all the house-elf heads along the stairway. Harry had seen house-elves before — his friend Dobby was an elf who had been accidentally freed from servitude to the Malfoys — but he had never seen one this old, wrinkled, or sour-faced. Like all unfreed house-elves, Kreacher did not wear actual clothes; he had a faded purple tea-towel wrapped as a sort of loincloth, the embroidered monogram "B" proudly displayed on the hanging sash end.

"Young Master calls for Kreacher...?" the phrase was one of deferrence, but the elf's wizened voice was full of contempt.

"Yes, he did. Firstly," Sirius said, and pointed at Harry, "this is my godson, Harry Potter. I won't have you following him around or bothering him, but as long as he's in this house, you must see that no harm comes to him, understand?"

Kreacher cast Harry a glance of pure hatred. "Kreacher obeys his master," he grumbled, "sees no harm come to Half-blood worm he brings to My Lady's noble house..."

Harry barely felt the insult, but he saw Sirius's jaw clench and his fingers tighten around the brooch as he held it up to show his house-elf. "And this. When was the last time you handled this?"

"Oh, Young Master, My Lady's lowest servant Kreacher would never dare to disturb her precious things..." he said, but he was looking away and pulling hard at his ear — punishing himself for evading his Master's question?

"That's not an answer," Sirius pursued. "Tell me about the last time you handled this brooch."

"Kreacher put it back where My Lady wanted it to always stay; was placed on the Great Tapestry to honor Master Regulus who loved his mother, not like ungrateful Young Master who betrays his family for dogs and human filth, who breaks his mother's heart and drives his father—"

"You won't handle it again," Sirius cut him off. "Do you have any more of Mum's jewelry?"

Kreacher paused sullenly for a moment, then slunk back into the cabinet. He pulled the door shut behind him, and a little jangling and rattling issued from behind it.

Sirius suddenly caught his breath. "Kreacher, don't—!"

Before he could finish the order, the cabinet door burst open with a _BAM!_ and a flurry of objects flew out: more brooches and hatpins, and also the larger flying shapes of a pair of gloves and a few silk scarves.

 _"Finite!"_ Sirius shouted, aiming his wand at the swarm, but only a few of the pins fell on the floor, the rest kept flying, aiming themselves at Hermione and Harry.

"Behind the tapestry!" Ginny shouted. Ron covered Hermione and ran with her to the back wall as Ginny grabbed the hem of the tapestry and pulled the bottom edge open. They ushered Hermione up onto the armoire so that the tapestry covered her, then held it out so that the pins only plunged themselves into it and stuck there in the fabric, unable to get to her.

Harry ran for the back wall as well, with his godfather blocking the attacking jewelry's path toward him, but Sirius had problems of his own. Two of the silk scarves were wrapping themselves around his wand and trying to wrest it away from him, while a third tried to tie itself around his neck and the gloves yanked at his hair. When Harry got to the tapestry, there was no furniture there for him to climb on, and it only hung down as far as his shoulders...

Sirius snatched the green scarf away from his throat and spun around just long enough to touch Harry with the tip of his wand — _"Arachnomanus!"_ — before turning back to fend off the attackers. Harry felt his body become not weightless but suddenly much lighter. "Up the wall! Climb!" Sirius shouted.

"Right!" Harry put his hands and the toe of his sneaker to the wall and found that they gripped it like an insect's feet, letting him indeed climb right up behind the tapestry. Holding on with his feet and one hand, he stretched out his other arm to lift the cloth away from him and keep the pins safely clear; with the tapestry thus held out, tentlike, he could look down the length of it and see Hermione standing on the armoire. Her legs would still have been exposed, but Ginny and Ron were hugging them tightly. Turning back to his own section of the cloth, Harry saw several needles burst through a few inches and wriggle against the fabric trying in vain to get at him.

Then one of them stabbed through the cloth and straight into the tip of his middle finger. It sent a bolt of agony shooting up his arm and he screamed in pain.

"Harry!" Hermione cried.

"Are you all right?" Ron called.

"IT HURTS!"

" ** _KREACHER!_** " Sirius roared, but Harry heard no response from the house-elf.

He clung to the wall and kept holding the fabric out, although it was an awful struggle to keep stretching out that hand. With the pin through his finger, his whole arm throbbed as if it might seize up and collapse in the next moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked each breath through his teeth against the pain. When he heard a small sound, he opened his eyes a little and saw the lower pins being pulled out, stabbed obliquely through the fabric, and trapped there one by one; Sirius was fastening the brooches onto the tapestry so that they couldn't move, but he was moving so slowly... " ** _Get it off me!_** " Harry cried.

"I'w tryeng, Harry!" Sirius shouted back; by the sound, he was holding his wand in his mouth.

"What's happening?" came Lupin's voice from across the room.

"More uph Wum's jew'lry. _Phinite_ didn' werk 'iss time," Sirius said breathlessly.

"One of them got Harry," Ron added.

" ** _It went through my finger!_** " Harry screamed.

"Sirius, stand back." Lupin said; Harry only barely heard him.

"Remus, no!" Sirius snapped, suddenly clear. " _Don't you—!_ "

But the next instant, the pin in Harry's finger pulled out with a small _thwup!_ , along with a few others stuck in the tapestry that Sirius hadn't gotten yet. It was a fresh burst of pain, but also one of relief, so that it took a moment for Lupin's gasp to register in Harry's mind. He tossed the tapestry aside and jumped down from the wall.

"You insufferable berk," Sirius was saying.

"Go take care of the others, would you?" Lupin asked softly. To judge from his voice and appearance, the commotion had woken him up again — he'd have been sleeping immediately above the Drawing Room after all.

Sirius dashed down to where Ron and Ginny were still guarding Hermione and started fastening more pins, taking his wand in his teeth again to attack them with both hands.

Harry looked back and saw that on the tapestry behind him, not only were the brooches struggling against the fabric, but they had been used to affix the gloves and scarves to it as well. At a jangle on the floor, he turned to the professor again, and even as Harry gingerly held his own throbbing hand, his stomach leapt up into his throat. More pins were buried in Lupin's palm, and Harry could see the bloodstained points of some of them where they had gone all the way through . "P- Professor Lupin?"

"I'll be all right. These shouldn't give you any more trouble." Harry felt a rasp in his teeth as Lupin pulled out a long jewelled hatpin and dropped it on the floor. It happened to land so that the ruby glaze of his blood on it caught the light, but it didn't struggle like the pins in the tapestry, just lay perfectly still.

"How did you...?" Harry asked.

Lupin took a deep breath as he pulled the last brooch out of himself. "Intention and Blood," he said; his voice was calm but tight.

"You don't need to tell him about that kind of thing, _Professor!_ " Sirius took the wand from his mouth to shout across the room. Ginny had climbed up on the armoire next to Hermione and was fastening the last few pins above Sirius's reach.

Lupin gently took Harry's wrist and looked at his injured finger, even as his own other hand dripped blood onto the floor. "Is Molly in the house?" he called.

"Last I knew, she took Fred and George back home," Ron answered.

"Would you go and get her please, Ron?"

"Right," he said, and dashed out of the room.

* * *

  
When the murderous fashion accessories had been dealt with, they all went down to the kitchen, where Ron and his mother soon returned through the fireplace, medicine and bandages in hand. Mrs. Weasley took care of Harry's finger first, slathering generous amounts of Ludmilla Healy's Salubrious Salve on it and then binding it up with an embarassing little bow of gauze. The size of the bandage almost made the wound look trivial, and surely a pin in a fingertip sounded trivial, but the pain it had caused Harry had been out of all proportion to that. Even now that the salve was soothing it, he felt as if his friends' questioning — "Are you okay?" "Is it feeling better now?" — was patronising him, that it concealed a note of "why'd you make so much noise over one little finger," but of course they didn't know how much it hurt... Harry did, however, accept Sirius holding him tightly around the shoulders.

Mrs. Weasley clucked as she spread a thick coat of salve on Lupin's hand, front and back — she was using a butter-knife where with Harry she had spread the salve with her fingers. "My goodness, it's just one thing after another around this place! I can't leave for two hours without _something_ happening..."

"Well, what would you have done?" Sirius snapped, squeezing Harry's shoulder a bit too hard. "I suppose if _you'd_ been there, nobody would've gotten a scratch!"

Mrs. Weasley looked up at him in surprise. "What? Oh, I didn't mean you."

But his face had already turned dark. "Blast that Kreacher..."

"Well, it's probably not his fault," Hermione ventured. "He's so old, he might just be confused. Maybe your mother or Regulus told him to—"

"He doesn't have to obey them once they're dead," Sirius said. "If he acts like this now, it's because he wants to."

"Well, maybe you should set him free."

"So he can blab?" Ron shot back.

"We thought about it, maybe with a Memory Charm, but no, not 'My Lady's Lowest Servant' Kreacher," Sirius said with a bitter laugh. "I did ask him once, you might be interested to know. Sent him off on the whole tirade: 'Kreacher must never ever leave My Lady's house; Ancient and Most Noble House of Black has never in many hundred years dismissed a house-elf...'"

"So you cut off their heads and hung them up on the wall instead?" Hermione demanded. Sirius's bad mood was apparently infectious.

"That's what my Noble Ancestors did with the ones they _liked_. Once Kreacher got all weepy about how he knew Mum had wanted to do it, but someone had to take care of Her Exalted Ladyship and in the end she just didn't have the strength to lift the sword, poor sweet thing that she was..." He paused for a long moment and let the sarcastic twist fall from his lips. "I'm sorry, Hermione; I shouldn't be taking things out on you. If you want to try with Kreacher, more power to you — but you saw what clothes did for Crouch's Winky, and I'd be shocked if she was half as batty as he is."

"That's true..." Hermione said sadly. The previous year when Hermione had become interested in House-Elf Rights, Harry and his friends had seen Mr. Crouch's dismissal of his house-elf Winky drive her to despondency and drink, despite Dobby's efforts to befriend and help her as both elves got jobs at Hogwarts.

"Just be careful about him, all right?" Sirius added. "That upstairs shows what he can do, even when I try to tell him not to."

"Okay."

Lupin yawned as Mrs. Weasley fastened off the bandages on his hand. "If you'll all excuse me, I should be getting back to bed..."

"Yes, you should," Sirius told him, and they all saw him off with a chorus of "Sleep well!"

Harry kept watching his gauze-wrapped hand until it disappeared through the kitchen's heavy wooden door, then looked back at the much smaller wrapping on his own finger. Apparently Lupin had reached toward the pins and lured them to attack himself instead of Harry. Was that what he had meant about "Intention and Blood," that he'd been able to break the curse on the objects with such a conscious sacrifice? It rang true — after all, as Headmaster Dumbledore had explained, it had been his mother's sacrifice of her very life that had protected Harry from Voldemort for so many years — but Harry found he didn't like the thought of it.

Sirius apparently didn't, either. _He didn't want Lupin to tell me about 'that kind of thing'..._ Could that be a clue to the secret, the one thing Sirius refused to tell him? If so, Harry didn't have the first idea what to make of it and wasn't fully sure that he wanted to.

The pin in his finger had been more painful than his little bandage could convey, but... _I could have stood it a little longer. Did he think I couldn't? He didn't have to do that..._

Harry looked around at a _whoof!_ sound in the fireplace, and found himself with another, different look at the power of blood. Mrs. Weasley had taken the stained towel on which Lupin had rested his injured hand and had tossed it it into the flames. Now, as Harry watched, she took a scrub-brush from the hot suds in the sink and began attacking every spot his blood had touched. Harry didn't think someone could catch lycanthropy from a werewolf's blood — from everything he'd read, only a penetrating bite would do it — but Molly clearly intended not to take the chance.

* * *

  
The salve, at least, healed the wounds quickly. By evening, Harry barely felt it at all, although Hermione still wouldn't let him use that hand as they picked through that cabinet in the drawing room. Kreacher had turned it into a sort of den and hoarded a number of objects from around the house, and Hermione argued for letting him keep anything that wasn't actively dangerous, including a framed photo of a heavy-lidded woman whom Harry was disgusted to recognise as Bellatrix Lestrange.

A few days later, the bandages were off and not even a mark was left when Harry went with Sirius down to the kitchen early in the morning. Lupin was on "night duty," and Sirius was in the habit of waking up early on such mornings and waiting in the kitchen until his friend returned safely. With Hermione and Ron spending that night at the Burrow, Harry also had some trouble sleeping in the quiet Blue Room, especially knowing that Professor Lupin might be in harm's way, so he had come down in his pyjamas and was waiting, too.

Before Lupin returned, however, the fireplace flared and Hermione and the Weasleys arrived via the Floo, letters in hand and smiling and chatting excitedly. "Harry, this one's for you," Mrs. Weasley said, handing him an envelope from Hogwarts.

"Well, someone doesn't think I'm getting expelled, anyway," he said, tearing it open.

"Oh, you're not going to be expelled!" Mrs. Weasley clucked, getting out the frying pan to start breakfast.

Ron already had his letter open. "They are assigning _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5_ , aren't they?" Hermione asked him. "I hope I did the right thing, going ahead and buying it..."

"What do you think?" Ron questioned.

Harry opened his own letter and found that it was indeed the start-of-term announcement and booklist:

 _Dear Mr. Potter,  
Please note that the new term at Hogwarts School  
of Witchcraft and Wizardry will begin September the First.  
As always, the Hogwarts Express will leave King's Cross  
Station, Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, at eleven  
o'clock. Please allow yourself plenty of time for boarding;  
Prefects especially are requested to arrive at the platform  
no later than ten o'clock.  
The following new textbooks will be required for  
Fifth-Year students:_

 _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 ,  
by Miranda Goshawk_

"...You're safe, Hermione," Harry said; Ron would have kept teasing her a bit longer.

 _Defensive Alternatives: Magical Theory and  
Guided Practice, by Wilbert Slinkhard_

 _Also note that at the end of term, all Fifth-Year  
Students will sit the Ordinary Wizarding Levels (O.W.L.s).  
Following you will find a list of books that the staff  
recommends to assist in O.W.L.s preparation. These books  
are not required, but are listed for the benefit of students  
wishing extra study for these important examinations._

 _The H.O.O.T. System for Outstanding O.W.L.s ,  
by Edelbert Gorey  
Owl-Post O.W.L.s Prep,  
A Complete Course by Correspondence  
Success on the O.W.L.s, Fundamentals and Strategies,  
by Hortense Newall_

 _the Headmaster recommends:  
Chocolate Frog Cards, the Complete Compendium:  
Every Card Since 1731, Reproduced and Annotated,  
by Imogen Honeybaum_

 _Please enjoy the remainder of your holiday._

 _Yours sincerely,  
 **Professor M. McGonagall**  
Deputy Headmistress_

Harry looked up and noticed that Hermione was still leaning back and forth to look over Ron and Ginny's shoulders. _Didn't she get a letter? Did they send it to her parents' house?_ Surely Dumbledore would have known where she was — but then he noticed that she was holding a little wrapped parcel against her chest. He glanced back at his own letter: _"Prefects especially are requested to arrive..."_ It was Fifth Year when Prefects were named. That parcel must be...

"Hermione, why don't you just open that thing?" Ron questioned.

"I don't know, I'm nervous," she said. "I mean, what if it isn't what I think...?"

"Oh, it is, don't worry," Ginny assured her. "I saw the package when... ah..." She looked back at her Mother, having come to the point of mentioning Percy.

As if to spare her the awkwardness, a _POOF!_ sounded through the room, and Professor Lupin emerged from under an Invisibility Cloak. "Good Morning, everyone."

"Hey, Moony," Sirius greeted.

 _P-POOF!_ "MAESTRO! You're back!"

" ** _Fred! George!_** " Mrs. Weasley shouted.

"Molly, they're not hurting anything!" Sirius insisted.

"Start-of-term announcements?" Lupin questioned, glancing over Ginny's shoulder as he came around to sit beside Harry, with Fred and George in tow. Harry nodded.

"We've got the Slinkhard book for Defense; do you know that one?" Hermione asked.

"'Slinkhard'...?"

"Uh..." She leaned back to look at Ron's letter again. "'Defensive Alterna—'"

" _Just open the bloody badge, Hermione!_ " Ron snapped.

"Ronald! Language!" his mother scolded.

"Sorry, Mum."

Harry showed Lupin his letter, pointing out the new Defense textbook. Lupin blinked at it for a moment, then waved it off with his hand. "Oh, well, I don't suppose it's any of my business what text your professor wants to use..." he said, a bit dejectedly.

Ron frowned. "That bad, eh?"

"Hermione, you were named a Prefect?" Lupin asked.

"Well, I think so..." she said, setting her parcel on the table. "That is, I won't know until—"

"Then open it!" Ron insisted.

"Oh, she's just savoring the anticipation," Fred said. "Give her a break."

"After all, it would've been nice if Percy had volunteered to put off the gloating a little longer like that," George added.

Harry heard Mrs. Weasley bang something on the stove.

"That does look like the Prefect package," Lupin said. "Assuming they haven't changed it in twenty years..."

"Maestro? You...?"

"Well," Sirius answered, "there were only the four Gryffindor boys in our year. Which one of us did you think got the badge?"

But Harry was unpleasantly surprised. He frowned internally at himself; he ought to be happy for his former teacher and family friend, but he knew his father had been Head Boy his last year of school. He had unthinkingly assumed that he had been a Prefect as well, and now was disappointed to find out otherwise.

"Yes, they wanted me to keep the rest of you out of trouble. I can't say I did a very good job," Lupin said.

"And I suppose your marks had _nothing_ to do with it?" Sirius asked.

"Everyone knew you and James were more talented than I was..."

"Yes, but you didn't blow off classes like we did," Sirius pointed out. "Talent or no talent, I know _I_ didn't want to go up against you after all that studying. Although being the best at playing innocent couldn't have _hurt_..."

A crackle of wrapping paper brought a hush to the room as Hermione opened her parcel at last. Even Mrs. Weasley turned away from her pan of frying eggs; their sizzling was the only sound for a long moment, until Hermione indeed drew out a gold badge with a capital _P_ superimposed over a rampant lion. Ginny clapped her hands; when Sirius and Lupin followed suit, Harry thought about joining in the applause, but felt too awkward.

"Oooh. Ahhh," Fred and George intoned.

Hermione turned pink and tucked the badge back inside the parcel; she pulled out a thick letter, several more leaves than the others had received, and began reading.

"I wonder who got the other one," Ginny remarked.

The disappointed feeling that had rattled in Harry's stomach earlier came loose and dropped. That question had been there in his mind, but Ginny asking it aloud brought it to the fore at last. _It wasn't me. I would have thought..._ His marks were just as good as any of his housemates, and after everything he'd done, surely he'd earned it... _If it wasn't me, I would have thought Ron — but if it was between me and Ron, surely—!_ he shut off the thought, disgusted with himself, but he simply couldn't understand it. If neither he nor Ron had gotten the Prefect's badge, that left the other three Gryffindor boys; Dean and Seamus were good students, but Harry didn't think they came close to outshining him, and surely it couldn't have been Neville, who was always scraping through Potions by just a hair and forgetting important matters such as the whereabouts of his toad...

Harry had to forcibly stop himself from a recitation of all his friends' faults, but still, _None of them have ever faced Voldemort,_ he thought. _None of them **saved the school** three and four times..._

 _None of them are getting expelled_ , a nasty little voice in his head added.

But maybe that was the answer! If he were Headmaster and a deserving student were facing a hearing, wouldn't he wait until it was all settled before sending the badge? That must be it! Harry _had_ been chosen; once the hearing was done — and surely it would go all right — then his Prefect badge would arrive.

He smiled, but found Ron looking away with a sour frown. His mother had begun setting the table, and he scratched at the wood with the end of his fork, reminding Harry that his friend had no way out of the disappointment.

But he didn't want to get involved in that. After all, Ron was probably sitting there thinking of reasons why it should have been him, not Harry or anyone else. Harry just let himself enjoy his own now-more-pleasant anticipation as Mrs. Weasley set out a great plate of buttered toast and started around the table, dishing up fried eggs.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Seven: The Wizengamot**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Six_

Six chapters in, I FINALLY get Kreacher on camera.

Early into this one, I admit I love the bit of vintage Lockhart thrown in, although I hope he just made that one up and didn't have to Obliviate the entire Puddlemere United Quidditch team for the sake of his anecdote.

Perhaps I should apologise to Molly Weasley, as here we see her get a little weird about Lupin's disease, but my thinking on that runs like this: when we get Lupin's reveal in Prisoner of Azkaban, at some point Ron shouts at him "Get away from me, werewolf!" Not "you nasty traitor" or anything like that, "werewolf"; this suggests to me that Ron has (more accurately "had") a bit of prejudice there — not an abnormal degree, but still. He had to pick this up from somewhere, and his stay-at-home parent is a good prime suspect. Don't get me wrong, Molly is trying and she does pretty well; she likes Remus and respects him, and if he required life-saving first aid that called upon someone to get his blood all over them, I have faith that Molly would take a deep breath and do it, but one can still get squicked about the werewolf germs, you know? (I also have felt that the canon, at least OotP, didn't do a good job of showing, in a complex and human and multifaceted way, what the anti-werewolf prejudice Lupin experiences _really means_ , so I suppose I'm trying for that a little.)

Guilty admission: the line "you saw what clothes did for Crouch's Winky" cracks me up. It just happened for innocent reasons — simply for the idea it was expressing and the cadence I couldn't find a good way out of it — but plucked out of context egad it sounds terrible! Maybe this can go in some kind of hall of fame alongside Snape in PoA with "Skin Malfoy's shrivelfig." (" _Sir!_ ")

  



	7. The Wizengamot

**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Seven  
 _The Wizengamot_**

Harry knew Hermione's shy humility couldn't last, and before long she was chattering about everything she was supposed to do as a Prefect and how she hoped she could get it right - she was the only one with any worries there — and all the wonderful and exciting things she'd found in the new _Standard Book of Spells_ that she was eager to cover in class. Ron got a smile from Harry by making a "yap-yap" hand gesture where Hermione couldn't see it, but his mother lightly slapped his hand, and Ron himself remained untouched by any humor. Now it was his turn to pick moodily at his food, although Mrs. Weasley didn't make such a fuss as when Harry had acted that way.

As they were finishing breakfast, the fireplace flared green with Floo powder again. Harry whipped around, wondering who it could possibly be, and Sirius and Lupin leapt to their feet, but the figure that appeared revolving rapidly in the flames and stumbled out into the room was Arthur Weasley.

"Arthur!" Mrs. Weasley cried. "What happened? Why aren't you at work?" Nonetheless she poured a cup of tea and offered it. "They didn't... _let you go_ , did they?

Arthur grabbed the end of the table, out of breath. "No, Hestia — Hestia told me — The owl just went out —" he panted, then took a steadying gulp from the cup.

Harry leaned forward to hear what had just happened.

"They moved up Harry's hearing! It's at nine o'clock today!"

"Today?" Harry burst out, upsetting his orange juice. He had managed to put away his fear of the hearing, but on the assumption of having another week to prepare! Now all the dread he had been pushing aside for later crashed in on him in one tremendous blow — and here he was still in his pyjamas!

"Wait, morning or evening?" Hermione asked. Meanwhile Lupin crossed to where he had folded the Invisibility Cloak.

"The building should close before nine in the evening..." Arthur said. He wrestled a crumpled scrap of parchment from his pocket and stared at it. "Yes, it's nine A.M.."

"But Mr. Weasley, that's in ten minutes!" Hermione cried.

"Five!" Professor Lupin corrected, offering Moody's pocketwatch from the cloak.

Arthur choked on his tea, accidentally showering Ginny with it. Instantly the kitchen was a flurry of activity; everyone jumped up from their seats at once. Harry reeled. He might have fallen out of his chair if Sirius hadn't grabbed his shoulders at the same moment and yanked him to his feet to hand him off to Arthur. Mrs. Weasley dashed over, apparently thinking to make him look presentable, but there was no time, and she just ran her hands over his uncombed-and-always-wild hair twice — probably, Harry thought, only making it look worse. Lupin took the Floo powder from the mantel and poured a handful of it; "Ready, Arthur?"

A cacophony of well-wishing and advice poured in on Harry so suddenly he could hardly separate his friends' voices: "Don't worry, Harry, it'll be fine!" "Just keep calm. Be truthful and reasonable." "Good luck!" "Stay strong, Harry!"

"Ready," Mr. Weasley said. Lupin threw the Floo powder into the fire and he plunged into it, gripping Harry's wrist tightly. "Ministry of Magic!"

Harry looked back over his shoulder as he was pulled into the flames; Sirius had followed close behind and leaned over to look into the hearth after him, and Harry saw Professor Lupin's hand take Sirius's shoulder, as if afraid he might not stop. Behind his godfather, his friends were all waving good-luck wishes, and then the image of the Black House's kitchen was swallowed up in the suffocating, spinning flames of the Floo network. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and gripped Mr. Weasley's hand as hard as he could; if they got separated, no telling where he might end up...

A burst of cool fresh air and the dull roar of a crowded room struck Harry's face like a splash of water, and he opened his eyes to find himself in a huge white-marble-tiled space with a high ceiling — the Ministry of Magic! They must have arrived in some kind of atrium, he thought as Mr. Weasley pulled him across the floor at a run; rather than looking ahead, Harry tried to take it all in in the few seconds he had. The walls were lined with golden fireplaces; random flames flared green one after another as people came and went. In the center there stood a great fountain of golden figures which all had their backs to Harry, but he could make out a wizard and a witch, a goblin and a centaur, and a great crystal curtain of water spouting from the wizard's upraised wand...

It was a mistake not to look ahead of him; Mr. Weasley swung around too tightly and Harry cut the corner, slamming into a blond-mustachioed wizard. They both fell to the floor in a shower of parchments.

"Watch where you're going!"

" _Sorry! Terribly sorry! In an awful hurry!_ " Mr. Weasley jabbered, dragging Harry up.

"Sorry about that!" Harry said, coming face-to-face for an instant with the person he'd run into. The wizard's eyes obviously found the scar on Harry's forehead and then widened with what looked like genuine awe, but Mr. Weasley was already pulling him along again. On the third step, Harry realised one of his slippers had come off in the tumble, but there was no time to go back for it.

They were heading toward the back wall where a security desk stood in front of a great pair of golden lifts. The security witch had jumped up from her chair. "Arthur, what's the hubbub?"

"Potter's hearing — moved it up —" he sputtered, hitting the security barrier at a dead run and folding over it as Harry crashed into the desk under the same momentum. "Didn't get the owl — starting right now — please got to hurry—!"

"Wand with you?" the witch asked Harry.

"Uh, no..." _Should it be?_

She glanced at the scar, too. "I know who you are, go on in."

"Thank you Jan!" Arthur shouted and was off again. Harry also shouted "Thanks!" back at her as Mr. Weasley desperately punched the lift buttons.

"That's Jan Hardy, good woman," Arthur said distractedly. The lift doors opened within seconds, but it felt like forever until they practically hurled themselves onto the car. "Thirteenth floor!" Mr. Weasley told the lift operator.

The young, uniformed wizard blinked at him. "You sure about that? Twelfth?"

Mr. Weasley looked at his scrap of parchment again. "No, it says thirteen— ** _Thirteen?_** Ah, yes, twelfth..." His face went white as he stared at the little note.

"What's going on?" Harry asked.

"Lift only goes down to twelve; gotta take stairs on down to thirteen," the operator said and frowned. "What'cha need down _there_ , anyway?"

"A hearing," Harry said.

At this, the lift operator turned pale also, and Mr. Weasley squeezed Harry's hand as he stuffed the note back in his pocket. "Don't worry, Harry. It's going to be all right..."

Harry's legs suddenly went weak. He felt as if an emergency room doctor had just told him in that desperate tone, "You're going to be all right." As the lift began to move, Harry found that it moved downward, not upward, and the dial above the doors started at a star and counted from "1" toward "12." There were a few roman-numeral floors on the other side of the dial, which must go upward from the atrium, but those were getting further and further away...

The dial-hand was just passing "3;" the lift moved painfully slowly, and with nothing to do inside it but sit still, Harry found himself cursed with a quiet moment in which to realise what was happening. They had moved up his hearing with such short notice that, even with friends inside the Ministry to get the word to him and help him, he still might not make it. As far as whoever had rescheduled was concerned, Harry wasn't _supposed_ to make it to the hearing. Suddenly it was being held on the "thirteenth floor," the very mention of which scared everyone who heard it...

Over the last several days, the Weasleys and Professor Lupin had kept telling Harry "The law is on your side; it'll be all right," but Harry now realised that the keepers of the law — at least some key persons among them — were definitely _not_ on his side. That should have been obvious from the start, with Fudge and the Daily Prophet colluding to discredit him, and maybe it would be enough for them to drag him into a hearing, whether the law was on his side or not. Maybe they had ways to be sure that everything would not come out all right...

The lift at last settled to a stop, but Harry's insides kept sinking. Mr. Weasley pushed him through the first wide-enough crack of the lift doors and down a dark hallway — a strangely familiar hallway — at the end of which was a single black door. Harry found the door somehow fascinating, and it sent a muddling ripple of deja vu through his mind, as if this were all a dream — if only that were true! When they came to it, the hall split off perpendicularly in both directions. Mr. Weasley hurried him off to one side, but Harry kept his eyes on that door and was only able to come back to himself when Arthur moved him bodily out of sight of it. Still, he was grateful to have had even a moment of respite from his dread.

Now he hurried ahead of Mr. Weasley down a dark spiral staircase of rough, cold stone that bit into his slipperless stocking foot. At last the floor flattened out, and he saw a dim-but-lighted doorway beyond. Harry broke into a run and dashed forward.

Once he was through the portal of dim light and had been swallowed up into the room on the Ministry's thirteenth floor, the air froze in Harry's mouth. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, as if he were about to faint. He had seen this place before — in Dumbledore's Pensieve. It was the inquisition hall where he had seen the remembered trials of the Death Eaters: an enormous chamber all in dark stone, dimly lit by torches. Tiers of stone benches rose above a bleak square of floor, in the center of which was a single chair; Harry couldn't see its arms from here, but knew that they were covered in magical chains with which those who sat there were bound in place. At the center of the opposite wall, a judges' box almost like that at a sporting event stood high above the floor, and now that box was the only part of the room that was filled. Other than the people seated there, the vast stone benches loomed silent and empty, excepting a few visitors beside the judges' box who were scribbling away in notebooks with quills — reporters, Harry realised, as if this weren't bad enough, but at least Rita Skeeter wasn't among them — and Mr. Weasley, who stumbled in behind him and fairly collapsed onto the nearest seat.

"Go, Harry," Arthur panted, but still his tone was unmistakably sorrowful. "You've got to just go out there... Nothing for it..."

Harry nodded stiffly and began the long walk to the center of the room. His legs trembled as if they might collapse with any step, and yet he could hardly feel the effort in them, or even the sensation of the floor on his almost-bare feet. He tried to look at the judges, not at that horrible chair; in the first row of box seats, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, stood flanked by two witches. Fudge was in a black robe, and his lime-green bowler was missing. He glowered down at Harry threateningly. To the left of him was an obviously very old witch, skinny and shrivelled, curved over but somehow not stooped; she reminded Harry of the pictures he'd seen of Oriental trees, the kind that swept sideways strangely yet gracefully. She wore red velvet robes and hat, and blinked at him through tiny round spectacles, alternately glancing at a piece of parchment for reference. The witch to the right of Fudge looked as if she might have spilled over from the reporters' seats; she was scribbling in a book, and her fashion sense certainly didn't seem to befit a judge, nor flatter her wide, almost toadlike figure. She wore a bright pink robe with ruffles at the neck and wrists, and a matching alice band that pulled the front of her hair severely tight to her head and sent the back of it flying into a mess of dirty-gold sausage curls. Her broad face was much-too-heavily made up, powdered quite white with great blots of rouge on her cheeks and a blood-red cherry drawn onto the middle of her wide flat lips, while her unlined eyes dissolved into just a pair of coal-black spots floating in her doll-painted face. She looked as if she were made up for the stage — or for other professional endeavors that Mrs. Weasley might slap Harry if he mentioned aloud. Behind those three were six more wizards and witches, all talking among themselves. Harry thought unhappily that at least some of them must be remarking on the defendant showing up missing a slipper, in pyjamas and bed-hair and yesterday's socks.

"Who comes before the Wizengamot, high council of Warlocks?" Fudge shouted down from the box. His somewhat nasal voice couldn't bring off the threatening intonation he was obviously trying for, but it was enough.

"Harry Potter," Harry answered; to his embarassment it came out as just a tiny croak as he came up beside the chair; those chains were barely a foot from his arm...

The old witch in red adjusted her tiny glasses. "State your full name clearly, please." Her calm professional tone let Harry get his bearings more.

"Harold James Potter," he said clearly.

"Be seated!" Fudge commanded.

It was what Harry had been dreading ever since he had recognised the room. He stared at the chair and the chains for a long moment, struggling to see which course was less frightening, and at last looked back up at the judges. "Can I have a different chair?" He could fairly hear Mr. Weasley groan behind him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Potter? I'm not sure I heard you," Fudge said slowly, and leaned forward.

Fudge was baiting him — teasing him! Harry felt as if he were being interrogated by Professor Snape, and despite everything his temper sparked. He thrust a pointing finger at the chains. " _I'm not sitting in that thing!_ "

A wave of muttering went through the reporters and judges. "Do you mean to show contempt for this council?" Fudge demanded.

"No!"

"Now, Cornelius, this is such a technical charge," the old witch in red said at a conversational volume. "I move that the council forgo restraining Mr. Potter; it would seem awfully silly to."

"I'll second that motion," boomed a kindly voice from behind Harry, "even though I am but a former member of the council."

Harry turned around and saw Headmaster Dumbledore walking onto the courtroom floor, bringing with him a palpable aura of warmth and calm and safety which washed over Harry so wonderfully that he actually smiled for a moment. In a sweep of long silver hair and beard and flowing pearl-and-yellow robes, Dumbledore crossed to where Harry stood, moved the chained chair aside with a brush of his wand, and conjured a flower-upholstered overstuffed armchair in its place. "If you would be seated, Harry?" Dumbledore invited. Without hesitation, Harry sat down.

"Albus Dumbledore. Good morning," the old witch greeted.

"Good morning Griselda, Cornelius, all."

"Wh- What is your business here?" Fudge demanded, catching himself.

Dumbledore conjured a padded bench beside Harry's chair and seated himself. "I am here to act as an advocate on Harry's behalf, as is my right under the law," he said pleasantly. "Very fortunate indeed that I got word of it when the hearing was moved up on such short notice. Someone at the ministry clearly is to be praised for their organisational skills."

Fudge coughed into his fist. "This hearing of the Wizengamot has been called to rule on Mr. Potter's violation of the ban on Use of Magic by Underage Wizards, and possibly of the Magical Secrecy Omnibus Act."

"Doesn't that seem a bit extreme?" Dumbledore replied offhandedly.

"You are speaking out of turn!" Fudge shot back.

"The council will indulge," 'Griselda' said flatly. The Minister clenched his teeth in consternation.

The fat, pink-robed witch on the opposite side flipped through her book, cleared her throat — " _hem-hem_ " — and spoke at last. "In the incident in question, Mr. Potter cast the Patronus charm in a Muggle-populated area, and the records show that a Muggle was present at the casting of this — if I may say so — highly visible spell. The records also show..." she flipped more pages "...that this is not a first offense. Three years ago, there was the matter of an illicit Hover Charm, and one year following that an incident in which Mr. Potter, ah, 'inflated his aunt'? ...which was stricken from his official record but nonetheless should be kept in mind, in my humble opinion." Her voice was high-pitched, with childlike and broad timbres doing discordant battle; if an operatic soprano could catch the illness of an untuned piano, she might begin sounding like the pink-clad witch. At any rate, it was not the tone of someone whose opinions were ever humble.

"How do you explain these facts, Mr. Potter?" Fudge demanded.

"In the first place," Harry shouted back, "the Hover Charm on the pudding wasn't me!"

"So three years after the fact you wish to dispute this charge?" the Minister asked, mock-incredulously.

"If it please the court," Dumbledore stepped in, "Mr. Potter is telling the truth, but before evidence was available, several months had already passed since the incident and I imagine it understandably slipped his mind, or perhaps he didn't want to inconvenience the witness."

"Witness? You can produce a witness to this?" Fudge challenged.

"Indeed I can. If the council wishes, it may summon the house-elf who cast the Hover Charm in question. He was released by his family and is currently without a master, so there should be no particular difficulty with his testimony."

While Fudge huffed, Griselda fiddled with her spectacles again and spoke. "Unfortunately, even in such a case it is outside the bounds of the law for a house-elf to give legal testimony. However, Albus, we may take your willingness to vouch for Mr. Potter under consideration. Besides, that is not the issue—"

"The issue to be determined at this hearing," Fudge interrupted with his ersatz booming shout, "is the incident of the illicit Patronus charm! Casting such a theatrical spell _in front of a Muggle_ is serious business indeed, Mr. Potter! How are you going to explain that? Was it actually a Goblin who got hold of your wand?"

The older witch glared at the interruption. "Cornelius, that remark was inappropriate," she scolded; he ignored her.

"It was self-defense," Harry called up at them angrily. "Dementors attacked me and my cousin!" The judges' box was suddenly alive with talk and the reporters scribbled furiously. _Serves me right for telling the truth..._ Harry grumbled internally.

It was Griselda who finally took the gavel from in front of Fudge's chair and banged it on the box for order; the sound of it echoing through the whole chamber seemed disproportionate to quiet only the judges' box, but it succeeded at doing so in any event. Fudge testily took the gavel back and glared down at Harry again. "And what would Dementors have been doing at the scene of the incident? Why, no Dementor has _ever_ left Azkaban island without the Ministry's knowledge!"

"I don't know what they were doing there!" Harry answered. "Shouldn't _you_ be trying to figure that out?"

Fudge banged the gavel; Harry suspected he just wanted to one-up Griselda's use of it a moment ago. "Again I must warn Mr. Potter not to show contempt for this council!"

"He does have a point, however," Dumbledore said over casually steepled fingers. "Harry does not bear the burden of showing _why_ the Dementors were there — _as I will demonstrate to the council that they indeed were._ "

Another loud wave of chatter broke through the judges box, another flurry of scratching quills among the reporters. Again Griselda reached for the gavel, but Fudge hoarded it. After another minute or so in which he ignored her apparent requests that he call for order, the old witch very calmly took a wand from her robes, pointed it at the ceiling, and set off a shower of white sparks with an earsplitting **_BANG!_** The room fell silent.

"I would like to remind Mr. Potter and his advocate," Griselda said, tucking away her wand, "that they do _not_ in fact bear the burden of proving that Dementors were present, only that Mr. Potter genuinely percieved a threat that would reasonably call for the use of the Patronus Charm. In my view that already seems clear, so I move that—"

" _ **I** move—_ " Fudge shouted her down again, "— _that the council see this matter through **completely!**_ "

"Second," said the fat pink witch smartly.

Fudge turned on Harry and Dumbledore again. "What _evidence_ can you produce as to the appearance of these alleged Dementors?"

"So glad you asked," Dumbledore said, rising to his feet. "If it please the council, I would like to call as a witness Miss Arabella Figg. And I will point out if I may, that summoning a witness is also my right under the law...?"

Fudge's face fell. He stared dumbly at the Headmaster; the pink witch frowned. Again Griselda stepped in. "Let it be so," she said, obviously a prescribed line, and produced from behind the edge of the box what looked like a glittery green egg. She tossed the object down onto the courtroom floor where it smashed and let loose a great burst of green flames and smoke. When the haze cleared, Miss Figg was indeed standing there between Harry and the judges' box, dressed in her housecoat and slippers and hairnet, her clanking bag on her arm. Harry was too surprised to laugh when a little black-and-white face poked out of the bag and meowed. Miss Figg fanned the smoke away, then caught sight of Harry and waved at him with a smile.

"Full name!" Fudge barked down at her.

She turned around. "Oh, Cornelius, I didn't see you there." Several of the council members around him laughed. "Arabella Doreen Figg. Excuse me a moment..."

Miss Figg walked right over to Harry in his chair, lifted the small cat from her handbag — he recognised Little Miss Footie-Socks from all those photos — and handed her to Harry before turning back to the judges' box. Harry tried to hold the cat and pet her, but she climbed up his pyjama sleeve and began awkwardly exploring his shoulders, no doubt making him look more ridiculous than ever, but it was hard to be angry at Miss Figg or her kitten.

" _Remove that cat from these chambers!_ " Fudge shouted, apparently having managed it.

"I move that we indulge the cat," Griselda said calmly. Three hands went up behind Fudge to second the motion, and Harry could see the Minister fairly tremble with rage.

" _Mrs._ Figg," the pink witch moved in while Fudge collected himself, "Were you present on the occasion of Mr. Potter — an underage wizard, I must remind you — casting the Patronus Charm outside of Hogwarts, in view of a Muggle, no less?"

"I was," Miss Figg said.

"And would you say that you _clearly saw_ what happened that night?"

"I would, yes."

"Describe to the council what you saw."

"Well," Miss Figg said, with an air of settling in, "I'm in the habit of letting my cats patrol the neighborhood, which happens to be near where Harry's Aunt and Uncle live, and my Tibbles—"

"Are we to accept testimony from a **_cat?_** " Fudge shouted. With his composure obviously cracking, he was sounding less imposing and more snivelling by the moment.

"You're interrupting the witness, Cornelius," Griselda warned.

"You can move to find Tibbles in contempt, if you like," Dumbledore suggested, drawing more laughs from the judges' box to the Minister's consternation. By now Fudge's mustache was jutting from his upper lip at aggressive angles.

"As I was saying," Miss Figg began again, "Tibbles came running to get me and I knew that there was something wrong. He led me to an alley where I found Harry and his cousin being attacked by Dementors."

"And are you _sure_ that they were Dementors you saw?" Fudge asked.

"If the council will indulge me?"

" _It will not!_ " Fudge snapped.

"We _will_ indulge," Griselda said.

"Madam Marchbanks, **_I_** am presiding over this hearing—" Fudge argued.

"And I am an Elder Witch of this council. We will indulge," the old witch answered, unfazed.

"Thank you," Miss Figg said. "If the papers are to be believed, Cornelius, _you_ have encountered Dementors on several occasions, or haven't you?"

"Of course I have! I inspect the prison every year!"

"Then tell me, would _you **ever**_ mistake a Dementor?"

Fudge opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound came out.

A brown bearded wizard in the row behind him — one of the youngest of the judges — raised a hand. "I believe I should mention here that Miss Figg was my Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at Hogwarts;" the man said. "She _taught me_ how to recognise a Dementor, and I have not found any inaccuracies in her teaching since then."

Harry looked up in surprise — Miss Figg had been a teacher at Hogwarts? Her cat tried to escape from his lap, and he picked it up again, having to pluck its claws out of his pyjamas.

"But as to the matter of the Patronus Charm," the pink witch stepped in again, "would you not admit that there was an awful risk of detection in that? Especially with a Muggle present?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so, not the way it happened," Miss Figg said. "The only Muggle there was Harry's cousin, who knew about our kind already, and he seemed to be unconscious before I arrived, poor thing..."

"Yes, but wouldn't the Patronus Charm be visible at some distance?"

"A fully-formed Patronus would be. Harry only managed a bit of smoke that time."

"Is is possible that he cast a more effective Patronus before you arrived to see it?"

"Well, as you said, I should have been able to see it at some distance, and in that case I _shouldn't_ have seen any Dementors."

"But after you came on the scene, Mr. Potter _did_ produce at least a strong enough Patronus to drive the Dementors off?" the pink witch questioned.

"No, I'm afraid not," Miss Figg admitted.

Holding Little Miss Footie-Socks against his chest, Harry sank shamefully into his chair as they discussed the extent of his failure. He looked across to Dumbledore, who had settled back down on the bench, but the Headmaster just kept facing straight ahead and didn't even glance at him.

"Then I suppose _you_ must have summoned a Patronus," Fudge recovered to insist. "If _something_ didn't drive the alleged Dementors off, then how are you and Potter here to tell the tale?"

"I threw biscuits at them," Miss Figg said simply, as if it were perfectly natural. Indeed only one voice in the box laughed, and it was quickly silenced by the awkwardness of finding itself alone.

"What sort of biscuits?" Griselda asked.

"Lemon-sugar, baked from my own recipe and with great care, mind."

Griselda once again adjusted her tiny glasses. "Since Arabella is a respected citizen in good—"

" _Hem-hem!_ " The pink-clad witch cleared her throat loudly and interrupted. "I have another question for Mrs. Figg. Is it or is it not true that you have a history of _consorting with werewolves?_ "

Harry did a double-take; could he have heard that right?

"Well, I don't see what that has to do with the matter at hand," Miss Figg answered; apparently she had heard the same non-sequitur question Harry had. "...But I'd like everyone present to know that the answer is 'yes.'"

A smile of savage pride at Miss Figg's answer swelled up in Harry's chest. The reporters were scratching their quills again; the judges' box was chattering. Fudge had turned his back and was arguing animatedly with the council members in the rows behind him, so he wasn't looking when Griselda again took his gavel and banged it for silence.

"I believe we've heard enough," she said. "As Elder Witch of the Wizengamot, I submit for the council's vote that both incidents discussed at this hearing be stricken from Mr. Potter's record."

Fudge turned around in shock. Griselda offered him his gavel back and he snatched it, but made no further move for several moments. "Would you like to call the vote or should I?" she asked at last.

He huffed out a few more breaths. "All in favor," he spat out at last.

Griselda raised her hand, as did the brown-bearded wizard and three others in the back rows.

"Opposed?" the Minister snarled, raising his own hand.

The pink witch raised her hand, and two others went up as well.

"That's five to four," Dumbledore announced as Miss Figg shuffled over to retrieve her kitten. "I believe this hearing is over."

The judges' box began to disintegrate even before Fudge grudgingly called "Adjourned!" with a final bang of his gavel.

Relief flooded over Harry, and he at last broke into a broad grin as Miss Figg lifted the cat out of his hands. "Miss Figg!" he burst out. "I never knew you were—"

"Oh, there'll be time for all that later, Harry Dear," she said. "You go with Arthur. Go," she said, shooing him gently before ambling off again.

Harry saw Miss Figg and Griselda heading for each other, and thought he heard amid the chatter Griselda saying "...haven't seen you in ages!" He turned to say something to Dumbledore, but the Headmaster had vanished from the bench beside him. He looked around the room; Dumbledore should have been easy to pick out, especially in such a sparse crowd, but Harry didn't see him.

Mr. Weasley arrived and took Harry around the shoulders. "Congratulations, Harry! A clean slate — better than we could've expected!"

"Yeah!" Harry agreed, but Dumbledore's sudden disappearance had taken a bit of the energy out of his grin.

Leaving the inquisition hall at last, they took the stone corridor and stairs at a more leisurely pace; Harry hadn't realised the spiral staircase was so long, and Mr. Weasley had to catch his breath after climbing it. When they arrived at the lift, Harry couldn't resist looking back down the twelfth-floor corridor at the black door. He wondered what was behind it, and had the strangest feeling that he already knew — that he had been through that door before, and just couldn't remember. It was like trying to remember a dream; every time he reached into his mind after it, he could feel it there waiting just beyond his reach...

Mr. Weasley had to take him by the arm and lead him into the lift when the doors opened. They didn't take the it all the way back up to the Atrium, but only to the fourth floor down, where they emerged into what Harry thought looked just like a Muggle office building, except for the parchments that zipped on their own along the ceiling from one cubicle to another, the personal photos that moved, and the words and phrases that appeared in the snatches of conversation Harry could hear, such as "Apparate" and "Enchanting Contractor."

"Where are we going?" he asked Mr. Weasley.

"Oh, well, I thought I'd take you to my office," he said. "I just really can't afford any more time away, and frankly I could use a witness of my own..."

Harry remembered what Ron had said about his father's treatment at work. Could he really be sacked for telling Harry about his hearing and for staying there with him? _He didn't have to stay..._

Mr. Weasley led the way off the main avenue, through zigzags of paths that seemed to become narrower at each turn. They were already rather narrow when they passed under the sign floating near the ceiling that read "Misuse of Muggle Artifacts," and would become tighter still before at last they arrived in a windowless corner of the large space, where a tiny cubicle was marked with a worn placard: "A. Weasley." Harry thought he could see bruises on the carpet where the partitions had recently been moved tighter. Whether it had always been like this or not, Mr. Weasley's cubicle would now fit easily inside Professor Lupin's house. It contained just enough room to sit at a desk — only now that was impossible, because the desk was piled high with parchments and a television set had been deposited in the chair.

"Oh, not that thing..." Mr. Weasley lamented.

"What is it?"

"A- a telemission set—"

"Television," Harry corrected, he hoped gently.

"Once someone starts watching it they can't stop. We got hold of it after a whole houseful of Muggles starved in front of the blinking thing; their police were investigating and turned it on, and _they_ ended up in the hospital by the time the Ministry took it away from them — didn't let us have it without a fight, either..."

The disturbing part, Harry thought, was how little different this sounded from a normal TV.

"Sandy Orpp was looking into it, but we had to lock it up after the poor lady tried the switch and found out it would play without eclecticity," Mr. Weasley explained. "Had to call the Aurors downstairs to get it away from her. After that, she was fine — we just had to keep it put away, but they sacked her earlier this summer, so I guess—"

" ** _Weasley!_** " Harry looked up to find a blond wizard, obviously younger than Mr. Weasley, coming toward them. " **It's about time you got back!** " the man snapped. He was shouting so loudly that a wide radius of cubicles could hear, and Harry saw several pointed hats perk up over the walls in nervous attention. " **Where have you been? Who is this guest and why wasn't I informed?** "

"Arthur was doing a favor for me," came a rich, deep voice from somewhere nearby in the maze of partitions. The speaker was visible as soon as he stood up to walk around toward them; he was a tall black man with a glossy bald head, a hoop earring, and dark eyes that were gentle but very alert. In his black robe he made quite an imposing figure, except for the shirt he wore underneath — the bit of paisley turtleneck that peeked out from his collar looked altogether out of place. Still, he stood head and shoulders above Mr. Weasley's supervisor, who was obviously cowed by him.

"This is Harry Potter," the black wizard continued. "Him being Black's godson and the Patronus Charm suggesting Dementors might have been involved, I wanted someone I knew at his hearing."

"That's not for a week!"

"They moved it up," Harry said. "It ended a few minutes ago." Suddenly, however, he didn't trust the tall man, not with the way he had mentioned Sirius...

"Harry was cleared," Mr. Weasley added.

"Well, congratulations," the black wizard said. "I asked Arthur to do it because Potter is a friend of his son, thought he could be more relaxed with someone he knew, and Arthur has advised me on this case before."

"No flying motorcycles yet, Kingsley," Mr. Weasley said.

 _Flying motorcycle?_ That notion definitely sounded familiar to Harry; he'd been having occasional dreams with flying motorcycles in them ever since he could remember, and he also thought he'd heard something once about Sirius having one...

"I overheard about that television, by the way. Would you mind if I took it down and let our forensic division look at it?" 'Kingsley' asked. "If it's done that much damage, it sounds more in our line."

"Oh, be my guest," Mr. Weasley said with obvious relief.

"Unless of course you have any objection?" Kingsley asked the blond supervisor as he took out his wand.

"No, not at all. Carry on, all of you," the man said, and urgently wandered off.

With a flick of his wand, Kingsley levitated the TV set out of Mr. Weasley's chair. "If you wouldn't mind coming with me, Harry, I'd like to talk with you." He said it pleasantly, but Harry's hackles rose. Was this man after Sirius? Could he get it out of Harry where Sirius was?

"Don't worry, Harry," Mr. Weasley said, half-collapsing at his parchment-mounded desk. "This is Kingsley Shacklebolt; a bit of an imposing fellow but he's a family friend." On the words "family friend" he gave Harry's hand a little shake, perhaps trying to signal something. Did he mean that Kingsley was safe? That he was a member of the Order? "Go on downstairs with him. I bet Harry'd love to get a look around your floor," he added to Kingsley.

"Follow me, if you don't mind?" Floating the television ahead of him, Kingsley led Harry back to the lifts, but turned aside from them and crossed to the stairwell in an adjacent corner. "Prefer the stairs myself; keeps the body fit," he said, and started downward.

Harry followed, still in his socks and one slipper, and counted the doors they passed. They had started from four, so that meant they were passing floor five, six, seven... When he counted floors nine and ten, Harry began to worry, and at eleven, the stairwell ended — but Harry knew there was a twelve and a thirteen; had he miscounted? "Is this the bottom floor, or...?"

"Not quite. Only the lifts go to twelve and stairs from there to thirteen," Kingsley explained, opening the door for him. Harry walked in as invited. This place had granite walls in a network of avenues and offices, a sort of cross between Mr. Weasley's floor and the inquisition hall that looked slightly like the inside of Hogwarts. Just ahead, the hallway teed off in two directions, and on the wall facing the juncture was a great iron plaque:

 **MINISTRY OF MAGIC  
D E P A R T M E N T • O F  
MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT**

 **AUROR HEADQUARTERS**

Harry's heart quickened with excitement. Kingsley was an Auror, and Harry was about to see the inside of Auror Headquarters!

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Eight: The Ministry**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Seven_

Yes, while she has not yet been named, we have now met Dolores Umbridge; I kept most of her look from the canon because I find it oddly interesting, especially due to a thought I had awhile back and can't shake, so I'm going with it in my version. Umbridge's eh, unique fashion sense for hair and makeup remind me of Elizabethan style. (Yes, Elizabethan, as in when Shakespeare was alive). The Elizabethan beauty ideal for women was something like a very high forehead — sometimes achieved with plucking, here mimicked with the hairband — very white skin, very blushed cheeks, and small, very red lips. (But in wrapping up her physical description, I couldn't resist the comment about 'other professional endeavors.' ;;)

And I've always pictured Fudge with a mustache; the art (including official) that I've seen of him doesn't have one, but I always see him with it, not a huge one but perhaps fancifully waxed... I think it's the bowler hat that does it to me, and I end up seeing hints of the "Brown Derby" logo...

Most of the hearing just poured itself out in one sitting; I was on a roll. With Griselda, and also the awe in the eyes of the guy Harry ran into in the Atrium and such, I'm trying to balance the presentation of the Ministry/Wizards at Large; I hope I didn't go too positive, but the point is that not everyone has turned against Harry and/or is a stupid jerk. But even Griselda, who played such a benificent role at the hearing, wasn't supposed to come across as a real booster, just an upright no-nonsense old gal. And I was also trying for some gender-balance with the extras. I particularly like Jan "manning" the security desk because it's antistereotypical. "Jan" is short not for "Janet" or "Janice," BTW, but for "January;" couldn't get it into the prose because understandably, everyone just calls her Jan.


	8. The Ministry

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Eight  
 _The Ministry_**

Incongruously, someone had taken thick white paint to the "AUROR HEADQUARTERS" inscription. A smile face was drawn in the "O," and another one positioned so as to be sticking out the leg of the "Q" as a tongue. Harry suspected Tonks even before she caught sight of him around a corner and called to him. "Wotcher, Harry!" Today her hair was in a honey-red ponytail.

"Hi, Tonks!" he said.

"Harry had his hearing and was cleared," Kingsley said as she came up to them.

"Too sweet!" she exulted. She gave him a thumbs-up "toast," and Harry was only a little awkward picking up on it, giving a thumbs-up too and knocking knuckles with her.

"Can you take this thing over to forensics?" Kingsley asked her, indicating the television. She drew out her wand, a very unusual-looking one made of shimmery figured maple with purplish metal tips, and took it. "Be sure not to touch - wait a moment," Kingsley said, then conjured a wad of cement on the front of the TV to block up the switch before sending Tonks on her way.

"Later, Harry!" she called back to him. Kingsley led him down the opposite fork in the hallway as Tonks, and a few moments later Harry heard a crash from her direction.

Kingsley led him through stone corridors lined with arched, doorless portals and name placards. Through the openings Harry glimpsed black-robed wizards and witches working at desks, discussing parchments and maps, and in one instance a few of them stirring a Pensieve. Soon, Harry and his host came to an archway labelled "K. Shacklebolt, Au1c."

As Kingsley was about to show him in, Professor Moody emerged from another archway. His "Mad Eye" stared straight at Harry for a long moment. "True what I've been hearing, then," he said gruffly. "Dragged you down to Thirteen, did they?"

"Yeah," Harry said. Kingsley did a double-take.

"Shacklebolt, a minute?" Moody asked.

"Go on inside, Harry, I'll be with you presently," Kingsley said, ushering Harry into his office before going to talk with Moody.

Harry stepped inside and looked around, over two robes on coathooks, one black and one clashy coral check, and over Kingsley's desk, which was neat and organised; Harry noticed a wooden box sitting out on it. However, it was the wall adjacent the door that froze him on the spot the instant his gaze fell upon it. Its whole area was covered in photographs, broken only by a map of the world and another of the British Isles, both dotted with colored tacks. Other than those maps, looking back at him from every square foot of the wall was his godfather's familiar face.

Harry's eyes darted randomly around the photo-collage; he wanted to take it all in at once but couldn't, and he hardly knew where to begin looking. There was the image from the wanted poster, of a threatening Sirius with dark, hollow eyes, as well as several others of him in Azkaban. Dates scrawled on the margins suggested that one had been taken each year during his imprisonment, but even in the first of them he looked frighteningly gaunt, and after that they all looked very much alike.

More incredible to Harry were the other, earlier pictures of Sirius young and handsome. Those showed his finely sculpted features youthful and smooth, his hair neatly trimmed — short and silky but with fringe that fell around his eyes in an unselfconsciously good-looking way. It echoed strangely against Lupin's memory as if Harry had felt a reverse-mould there, the gap left behind by the flawless face in these pictures. But that wasn't the reason Harry's heart pounded in his ears at seeing them contrasted with the careworn Sirius he knew, at seeing them simply as pictures of his godfather — of his _family_ , because in very few of them was Sirius alone.

In one photo, Sirius stood next to Harry's mother, red-haired, green-eyed Lily Potter in her wedding dress, and he reached across behind her to poke teasingly at another man in a blue robe and hat, who had caramel-brown hair tied back with a great cavalier bow. Harry watched as his mother reached over her shoulder and hooked Sirius's finger in a sort of mock-judo move, and only as the three of them laughed and the man in blue raised his head did Harry recognise it as Professor Lupin, without a single line on his face nor a single strand of grey in his hair. Lily kissed him on the cheek, and he lit up so brightly that he didn't look a day older than Harry.

In another picture there stood a figure that could almost _be_ Harry, or maybe Harry in a year or so, except that the lightning-scar was missing, and the eyes were the wrong shape and color, hazel instead of green. It was Harry's father, James Potter, standing beside a berry-red-chrome motorcycle on which Sirius was carelessly half-seated. A younger girl stood between them; she looked ten or eleven — first-year-aged — and, like James, had glasses and wild black hair. Against a backdrop of blackberry brambles, James raised two fingers behind the girl's head. She noticed and slapped his hand, and Sirius pulled her over to him with playful protectiveness as she and James stuck out their tongues at each other. Harry had never seen her before, and he checked the handwritten caption: "James  & Sirius & Henrietta." He had never heard that name, either, but he guessed she must be his aunt, or maybe his father's cousin. She was like a wonderful gift, but still it made him sick to look at her. He knew he didn't have any blood relatives left except the Dursleys, which meant that this girl must be dead.

He looked up again and came practically face-to-face with Sirius: a school portrait in his Hogwarts uniform, probably seventh-year by the look of it. As Harry stared at the portrait, the image of Sirius winked at him, then pointed past its frame to direct him to another photo.

When Harry found that one, he lifted it from the wall, and it came loose without resistance. It showed the porch-steps of an inviting stone house. Harry's mother stood smiling and waving from the doorway; his father waved as well, leaning against a pillar. Sirius sat on the step, bouncing a baby on his knee — a baby that had to be Harry. He watched Sirius lift his baby-self and turn him to face out from the photo, pointing out the fifteen-year-old Harry looking down at them. Sirius waved; his lips moved without sound, but Harry could almost hear his voice: "Say 'hi,' Harry!" The baby instead grabbed clumsily at his hand and clung to his finger while looking up with wide green eyes. James crouched next to them so that their three faces were bunched close together, and he and Sirius waved and mouthed "Hi-i!" as Lily watched them with a brilliant, motherly smile.

"Doesn't look like a picture of a killer, does it?"

Harry was jolted back to the present as Kingsley came in and crossed to the desk. He looked around in confusion, and the school portrait of Sirius moved in a way that caught his eye. As Harry looked at it, Sirius cupped a hand to his face and mouthed " _play along._ "

"Just set that back on the wall. Have a seat," Kingsley said, shuffling some papers. Harry lay the photo against the wall again and it held there as he took the chair beside Kingsley's desk.

"Now just relax," he told Harry. "You're not in any trouble, I only want to ask you some questions. No one's going to twist your arm; just answer as best you can, all right?"

"Okay," Harry said, bracing himself. As he had expected, Kingsley asked him a series of questions about Sirius — about the the night Harry had learned the truth about his godfather, since that was the one time they had officially met, and then whether he'd seen Sirius since or knew where he was. Harry stayed to the truth enough to maintain Sirius's innocence, but carefully avoided saying anything that might give away his whereabouts or incriminate anyone. Shacklebolt either didn't notice him being evasive or didn't care; he just asked the questions in a very businesslike way and wrote on some parchments as Harry answered, barely even looking up at him.

Finally Tonks poked her head around the archway. "Hey, Harry!" she said. "Kingsley, thought I'd tell you, Hooper's got your telly."

"Oh, good," he said, shifting from his settled seat. "I think we're done here. Tonks, could you get Harry some clothes from the Muggle closet and take him home?"

"Not a problem!" she said. "C'mon, Harry."

"Wait a moment," Kingsley stopped him as he stood up. He picked up the wooden box from his desk and handed it to Harry. "I know you haven't seen him in some time, but if Black should happen to appear, just open this box, all right?" he said, and winked.

"Okay," Harry said. He stuffed the box in his pocket, then followed Tonks out into the hall. She took him to a large walk-in closet in which there were indeed Muggle clothes and accessories of all descriptions — "For when we have to go under cover you know," — and she let Harry shut himself inside for privacy and change out of his pyjamas. The jeans he found needed to be belted in and cuffed up just a bit, but the adult Aurors' clothes weren't as baggy on him as he had expected. He also found a sports bag to carry his pyjamas and orphaned slipper home in. Once he was finished, Tonks peeled off her black robe and shut herself in for a few moments to swap her "Wyrd Sisters" T-shirt for one with the name of a Muggle band on it.

"Let me show you something," she said, and Harry was only too happy to follow her. She led him down a transverse corridor which opened into a green courtyard, right there in the middle of this deep-underground structure. Above him Harry could see the sky, and the square space was all lushly grassy, dotted with bushes and trees. If not for the views into stone hallways through the four portals, one centered in each wall, Harry would have thought he was outdoors. Directly in the middle of the courtyard, a quartered ring of hedges surrounded an earthen mound with a sword thrust down into it, like some greener rendering of the King Arthur legend.

"What is this place?" Harry said.

"This is where we practice magical combat," Tonks said. "We've got a spell that keeps anybody from getting really hurt, like they use in sport-duelling. There's a cushioning charm on the walls, too." She slammed her shoulder against the stone and it bounced her back gently. Harry couldn't resist trying it, and indeed it felt like throwing himself against a mattress.

"The trees and hedges are to practice with obstacles and cover," Tonks continued, "and see the doors here. The arched ones are the entrances..." she pointed to the portal where they had come in, and to the one opposite, then to the other two portals, which unlike the first were flat on top, "...and the square ones lead to more practice area, made up like if you were fighting indoors."

"Wow!" Harry said, admiring it.

"Now, come on before we get caught; I probably wasn't supposed to show you that," she said, and led him out again. Harry only reluctantly left the courtyard and the sword-mound behind, and hoped that someday he could actually use the practice area.

As she led him out of Auror headquarters, toward the lifts, Professor Moody caught Harry for a moment. "Glad about your hearing, Harry, but don't let your guard down just because it went your way. Remember, **_Constant Vigilance!_** " he called as he left Harry and Tonks waiting for the lift.

"Yeah, I—" Harry barely caught himself before saying "I remember;" it hadn't been the real Moody who had told him that in class all those times. "I'll do that!"

The lift carried them back upward, and Tonks listed off what was on some of the various floors. Ninth was the Forum where people met to make laws and where they voted during elections. Sixth was mostly Beasts Division stuff; the Aurors got called up there sometimes to help the Werewolf Capture Unit. Fourth floor was devoted to enchanted objects, including most of Transportation and the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office.

Harry asked to stop on that floor, and he and Tonks found Mr. Weasley working feverishly over the piles of parchments in his little cubicle. Harry just looked in for a moment to say that Tonks was taking him home, and Mr. Weasley managed to show them a tired smile before they headed back to the lifts. They got lost in the maze of cubicles for awhile, but Tonks managed to knock over only one wastepaper basket.

Harry happened to mention that he'd never been to the Ministry before, so when they finally found the lifts again, Tonks wanted to show him some of the sights on the floors above. He opted out of the Archives — third floor, contained every Daily Prophet ever printed — but she took him around the first floor, which housed the Departments of Magical Games and Sports and of Magical Recreation and Tourism. The best part of these places was the free promotional items, she said, and indeed Harry was able to stuff his bag with Quidditch posters, a miniature Gobstones set, several pairs of adhesive felt wings that would turn any round object stuck between them gold to make it look like a Snitch, quills decorated like the flags of various countries with the Department of Magical Recreation and Tourism's contact information imprinted on them, and some of the many free books and pamphlets. He picked up copies of "Vacationing Amid Muggles: How to Have Fun Without Showing It," "Charmed Destinations for the Financially Jinxed," "Duelling the Safe (and Legal!) Way," and "Aviana Florence: the Star Seeker who Invented the Golden Snitch," a book put out by Save Our Snidgets with a note identifying it as a biography of the group's founder. Not only was Harry interested to learn more about a famous fellow Quidditch Seeker, but the picture of Aviana on the cover made her look fascinating and pretty, with her famous pet snidget Lemmy — or so the round yellow bird was labelled — sitting on her finger. It was free, Harry told himself, nothing wrong with taking it because he liked the picture...

Thinking it would be silly to take the lifts for one storey, Harry found the stairway and Tonks followed him up the last flight to the atrium. Jan at the security desk called him over to give him his lost slipper, and Tonks took him over to show him the fountain.

Now viewing it from the front, Harry counted five golden statues: a tall bearded wizard on an upraised pedestal at center, a shorter witch beside him, and standing around their feet a goblin, a centaur, and a house-elf. The wizard and witch's wands were upraised and spouting water. All five figures looked upward to a point beyond the tips of the wands, and all had their mouths open as if singing happy exultations. The expressions struck Harry as pat and fake; they gave the impression that the other three figures were joyously following right along in the wizard and witch's song, which, from what Harry knew, goblins and centaurs were highly unlikely to do. A house-elf might, he thought, but he had never seen a house-elf wear such a happy and carefree expression — not one dressed in household linens like the statue was, anyway.

A gold plaque at the base of the fountain read:

 _DEDICATED TO ALL MAGICAL BRETHREN_

 _Coins will be Donated to St. Mungo' Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries_

Harry promised himself he'd pay the Aurors back with interest and dug in the pocket of his borrowed jeans for some coins, thinking variously of having survived the hearing, the free booty in his bag, Dedalus Diggle, and Neville's parents...

"In the bottom is just if you want to make a donation," Tonks said as he made to toss them in. "If you want to make a wish you have to get it in the wizard's mouth. That's what all the kids said when I was little, anyway. In the witch's mouth means you'll marry a pretty girl, but if you get it in the house-elf's ear, you'll lose your magic and become a dishwasher," she added.

Harry was grateful not to find out what Hermione would say about that childish superstition. He hadn't thought about making a wish, but now thought he may as well try it, if the hospital would end up getting the money anyway. He closed his eyes and thought about it. _I wish..._ Kingsley's wall of photographs loomed up in his mind, but he pushed it aside; no good wishing for something that could never come back... _I wish I could live with Sirius from now on. —I wish his name would be cleared!_ Harry settled on that one and focussed his mind on it, and as he dropped the coins in the water, he reserved an entire gold galleon and aimed it carefully at the wizard's singing mouth...

He was just about to throw it when a flash of red hair flicked across the corner of his eye and struck a spark of recognition. _Mr. Weasley?_ They couldn't have sacked him in the last half-hour, could they? But then, Fudge had been wanting to do it, and the Hearing had made him so angry that he might decide he didn't need an excuse... Harry whipped around — yes, he could still see that bit of red amid the people milling about, and he ran toward it. Heading for the fireplaces, better hurry — " **Mr. Weasley, wait!** "

But when he came close, the redheaded wizard turned around, and Harry found that it was someone much younger, with glasses — Percy! Harry stopped short and stared at him awkwardly, by then too close to just walk away. He tried to think what he would've wanted to do if he met Percy, but found that talking to him didn't make the list, and most of what did would get him in trouble with Jan over at her security desk.

Percy showed him an impersonally-pleasant smile. "Good day, Harry. You can still call me Percy, you know, you don't have to use 'Mr. Weasley,'" he said, with an intentional chuckle.

"I thought it was your dad," Harry told him.

"Oh." His smile didn't fall, but he quickly moved on. "Have you seen Ron and Ginny lately?"

Harry nodded.

"How are they getting along?"

"They're good."

A short, awkward pause.

"Hearing went all right, I take it?"

Harry opened his mouth for a short affirmative, then suddenly it hit him: if Percy was asking that, he had to know that the hearing had been this morning. _He knew they moved it up!_ Harry felt angry heat climbing up his neck. He wanted to punch those glasses right into Percy's smug face, but he knew he couldn't, and he just clenched his teeth and took deep, careful breaths...

Tonks appeared at his shoulder. "Wotcher, Mr. Weasley."

"Tonks, what are you up to?"

"Running errands for Kingsley. He had a talk with Harry and then asked me to take him home."

"I'm sorry, 'Kingsley'...?"

"Shacklebolt," Tonks said.

"Ah, yes."

"But anyway, since it was Harry's first time at the Ministry, thought I'd show him around a little."

"Is that really how you should be spending your time?" Percy asked, his tone irritatingly pleasant. "We have tour guides, you know."

"Oh, come on, I'm still the coffee monkey down there," Tonks protested. "Playing 'friendly neighborhood copper' is fighting more evil than they usually let me at."

Percy chuckled again. "Well, keep at it then. Good talking to you, Harry," he said, then tossed some Floo powder into the fireplace and set off for "Witch Weekly Head Office."

As soon as he was gone, Harry was glad to see Tonks stick her tongue out after him. "Smarmy git. You wanna see the garden on the top floor, Harry?"

"No, I don't think so..." he said. The run-in with Percy was leaving him hot and trembly. "Let's just go home — Wait." He realised he still had the galleon in his hand.

Harry walked slowly but purposefully back over to the fountain. _Forget Percy, forget the hearing, forget everything, just think about Sirius being cleared..._ He closed his eyes for a long moment to think of that over and over, opened them again, and tossed the coin. It bounced off the wizard's nose, then sharply off his lower lip. Harry watched it desperately, afraid it would glance off his cheek and fall, but it came down again right on target and jangled in his mouth.

"Too sweet, Harry!" Tonks cheered. "You're a good shot! What'd you wish for?"

"I didn't think you could tell things like that," he said, smiling again.

"You can't? Who told you that?"

Apparently wizards had a different superstition than Muggles, but Harry still couldn't tell this one; not in public, anyway.

Tonks led him to a small lift at the opposite end of the atrium from Jan's desk. It carried them up to a telephone box, and as the floor came to rest at street level, a disembodied voice spoke not from the phone but from the air near Harry's head. "Thank you for visiting the Ministry of Magic. We hope that your visit was pleasant and productive and that you will come again soon. Have a good day!"

"You take this same box to get into the Ministry," Tonks said, "Just pick up the handset and dial 'M-A-G-I-C.'"

They emerged from the box onto a quiet and dingey street; from the outside, the Ministry looked like an abandoned building of crumbling brown bricks, with painted-out windows and no door in sight. From there, Tonks led the way and soon brought Harry to an underground station. Her undercover equipment included Muggle money for the fare, and looking around the station, Harry discovered that they were in London. _Well, where else would the Ministry be?_ he thought. After a few stops, Tonks led him off the train and they started walking again.

Soon she had taken him to an even more run-down area than where the Ministry had their phone-box. "Are you sure you know where you're going?" Harry finally asked. She was turning down a street where all the houses seemed to have flaking paint, patchy yards, and cracked windows.

"This looks like it," she said, and checked the sign. "Right, 'Grimmauld Place.'"

She crossed to the even-numbered side and checked the numbers on the houses. Harry looked at them too: _... six ... eight ... ten ..._ Tonks stopped halfway to the next house, then checked up and down the street. Looking past her, Harry saw that the next house was numbered "14." _But the last one was ten, so where's...?_

Tonks gripped his hand and turned away from the curb. Right in front of her, a crooked, broken picket fence separated Number Ten from Number Fourteen, and she walked directly into the first post. Suddenly the neighborhood split along that fence and opened up to reveal a huge mansion, an imposing Victorian Gothic in rose-black stone, towering over every other building in sight. Harry tilted his head far back to see up to its high bay window and intricate roof, and as he looked back down to the door, he found the tarnished gold "12" framed in filligreed moulding above the entrance. Tonks pushed the door open with a loud creak, and through it Harry recognised the entry hall of the Black House. "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place," she announced, "Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Tonks, what if someone heard that?" Harry hissed; how could she just say the headquarters' location out loud to the whole world?

"Try and say it back to me." A hint of mischief twinkled in her eyes.

It seemed an odd request, but Harry tried and found that he couldn't do it. He remembered Tonks leading him in, but the sequence of the steps and the identifying images were all blurred out of his mind's reach, like trying to remember a dream. Harry discovered that he hadn't the faintest idea where this house was, and that he certainly couldn't find it again on his own. "What the...?"

"Inn'it it wild?" Tonks said with a smile, and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "It's Fidelius Charmed. —Speaking of wild charms," she straightened up again, "brace yourself when we go through the door. It's Unwelcoming, so this won't be much fun until we find Cousin Sirius, but thought I'd show you the front way in just once..."

As he followed Tonks through the door, Harry shivered as if he had walked under a flow of cold water, and the door shutting behind him gave him a jolt. He suddenly wanted a path to get out of this house at a moment's notice, and with each step down the length of the foyer, he was more powerfully tempted to bolt for the door. _What am I doing here? I'm not wanted here... What am I thinking? This is Sirius's house! He wouldn't want me to leave..._ But hundreds of years of Blacks glared down at him from the portraits lining the walls. He realised that he would have stopped walking if not for Tonks holding his arm, and she was moving none too fast. Harry made an effort to pull himself together and continue purposefully forward.

The walk felt terribly long; the heavy silence filling the room weighed on him and dragged at him as if he were walking through tar. Mrs. Black's portrait loomed so threateningly behind her curtains that he closed his eyes and let Tonks lead him to the stairway, and he turned away from the painting before looking. Light shone under the kitchen door, and they crept carefully down the steps. Harry felt a little braver when he heard Sirius's voice coming from inside, but only a little.

"No, they're not, but they're not stupid, either," he was saying. "You think they can't tell when you're covering up? You think any of them are going to believe that was just a clerical error?"

"That doesn't mean you have to tell them Harry's getting railroaded!" Mrs. Weasley protested.

"I said it looks like _what it looks like!_ "

"You don't have to tell them everything! You don't have to burden them with all of it when they're too young to do anything—"

"But they're old enough to want to know, and to get around you and find out! Remember when I got out of prison? Remember how you tried to 'protect' Harry by not telling him _who I was_ , by saying I was some crazed Death Eater?"

"Well you can't blame us for thinking so."

"As a matter of fact, I can, and I occasionally do. But the point is, it did an excellent job keeping him clear of me, now, didn't it?"

Harry and Tonks stood very still. Harry deeply wanted to hear what they were saying, and at the same time felt like a wretched criminal. _Who do I think I am to barge in here and start eavesdropping?_ But he was also too afraid to touch the doorhandle...

"Harry's his father's child. Just hiding things from him isn't going to work," Sirius said.

There was a brief pause before Mrs. Weasley spoke again. "He's his father's child, but he's not his father."

"Hm?"

"He's not James, I said. Sirius, you don't treat him like he's your child. You act like you could just pluck your best friend out of the past and have him back!"

"I don't see what—"

"James is _gone_ , Sirius!" she cut him off.

" ** _I don't need you to tell me that!_** " he shot back at a roar.

Harry jumped and barely held himself to the spot, but Sirius continued much more softly.

"...Not after twelve years of those Dementors grinding it into me every day... That I was alive and he was dead..."

Even as Mrs. Weasley was saying "And Harry's your second chance," Harry felt the Unwelcoming Charm start to get the better of him.

"Tonks, I— I think we should just go..."

There came a scraping sound from behind the door, and a half-second later it was thrown open. Sirius stood there in the light from the kitchen, which struck Harry like a gust of fresh air.

"Harry!"

"He got off!" Tonks cheered.

"Oh, congratulations!" Sirius shouted, seizing Harry in a hug.

As soon as Harry saw Sirius, the dark spell over him broke, snapping the force that had been trying to pull him back out the door. It was such a release that he practically fell into his godfather's arms. "I'm using the Floo from now on!" he insisted. "I hate your door!"

"Oh, everybody hates that thing; I'll tear it out someday," Sirius laughed and pulled Harry into the kitchen, with Tonks close behind. As they came to the table, Harry thought he heard a soft clang from the dumbwaiter, and Sirius must have heard it too, because he crossed to it and called up the shaft. "You know you'd all hear better if you just came down here."

Mrs. Weasley jumped. "They couldn't be— Professor Lupin was—!"

"Where's Moony?" Sirius called.

"He fell asleep." Ginny answered from the kitchen doorway as she and Ron rushed in to congratulate Harry.

Fred and George were close behind them, both grinning broadly. "Shame about the hearing really." "Here we were getting our hearts set on breaking you out!"

When Harry happened to glance at their mother again, she seemed frozen to the spot. Her ears and cheeks had turned cherry red.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Nine: Blue Footprints**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter eight_

I admit I indulged myself with the photos in Kingsley's office. Personally, I think Rowling could've done a lot more with that, but I know I tend to be a sucker for flashbacks, perhaps to a fault... Although in my defense, as he's been presented, _Harry_ ought to be at least as much a sucker for flashbacks as I am (Mirror of Erised? Remember that...? It's _your_ plot point...), and I think it's an important part of his character that doesn't always get enough treatment. Actually in drafting later chapters I've had a couple more places where we pause with photos; I may try to work it in as kind of a subplot.

Speaking of Kingsley, though, readers of Hand-me-Downs will already be aware I gave him his own comical "endearing flaw," that of horrendously bad fashion sense.

In general, one thing I definitely credit the fandom with is that while it is very satisfying in the details of setting it reveals, Harry Potter is a story where the proverbial gun you see on the wall in chapter one generally does go off. Myself, though, I'm erring on the side of texture. Of course I will work in the things I need for my plot points as best I can, but some of these things are here just because the idea came to me and I thought it would be cool to include. Arthur's evil TV, for example, has no importance that I know of, and any justification for the Aurors' practice yard beyond "just plain cool" is pretty tenuous. At least once, though, something that I thought was a throwaway line when I wrote it did end up being a gun that went off...

Sirius/Molly tensions escalating, with perhaps a bit of canon vengeance on the side (the whole "Harry isn't James" business... Trust me, IMU, Sirius doesn't need anyone to tell him that).

BTW, is it just me or did Tonks hate Percy on sight back there? Hmm...

  



	9. Blue Footprints

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Nine  
 _Blue Footprints_**

A few moments later Hermione led Prof. Lupin down to the kitchen, and he readily scolded himself for falling asleep while in charge of the children. Sirius was strangely mum, but Mrs. Weasley accepted the apology, still blushing and fumbling. After that, she recovered quickly from her shock and kept up a friendly if taut face while she made lunch.

Tonks stayed for the meal, and for Harry's retelling of the entire hearing. Opinions were divided as to whether he should have swallowed his objections and sat in the chained chair, but Dumbledore's appearance brought near-unanimous applause. Tonks and the Weasleys cheered, but Sirius offered only a flat "That was good of him."

"What do you mean?" Ron protested.

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked him.

"I said it was good of him," Sirius maintained with a shrug, but when Harry looked over at him, Sirius avoided his eyes. Harry was unsettlingly reminded of how Dumbledore had also failed to meet his eyes or even speak to him, but he pushed it aside.

For now, he thought it better just to get on with the story, and further reactions remained upbeat. His friends all laughed at Fudge being shown up in front of the press. It turned out that the adults present had also studied Defense under Miss Figg - alternating stints by her and Professor Moody - although Professor Lupin said he didn't know what the pink witch had been thinking of with her "consorting with werewolves" question. Mrs. Weasley identified the old no-nonsense witch in red as Griselda Marchbanks, who had headed the Ministry's Academic Examination Bureau since before Mrs. Weasley had been born, so Harry could expect to see her next spring when he took his OWLs. While Harry was thankful for Griselda's role at the hearing, he couldn't say he was looking forward to that.

When Lupin had gone to bed and Tonks was headed back to the Ministry, Harry's friends naturally pressed him for all the details about his visit to Auror Headquarters. Ginny thought he should have tried pulling the sword out of the mound in the practice yard. Harry chose not to mention Kingsley's wall of photographs, but he was reminded of the box Kingsley had given him, and handed it over to Sirius.

"Ah, yes, that will be the booty," Sirius said, and opened the box to reveal it full of gold. "Very useful having my 'Sherlock' in the Order; he has the perfect excuse to get into my vault." From there he and Mrs. Weasley broke off into a gentle argument as he pressed her to take the money for school shopping and she tried to resist.

"Speaking of booty..." Harry said. He unzipped the borrowed gym bag and dumped the contents out onto the table, reserving his pyjamas and slippers and also the Aviana Florence book. "This is all stuff they were giving away when Tonks showed me around the Ministry. If you see anything you want, help yourself." Ginny, Fred and George immediately leaned over the pile of bonuses and Hermione began sifting out the books and quills. Ron, sitting next to Harry, just propped his chin on his hand.

"Ooh, these are cute," Ginny said, picking up a pair of the felt wings. She stuck them on the sides of her head, and Harry laughed as they turned her hair metallic gold.

"They're Snitch wings," he explained.

"Well, they work for this, too," she argued and toyed coyly with one of her braids.

Fred and George grinned. "That _is_ a nice trick."

"And they just give these away for free, you say...?"

"Hmmm..."

"Do you want any of the quills?" Hermione asked.

"No. If you want them all, that's fine."

She gathered them all up in a pile, then started leafing interestedly through "Vacationing Amid Muggles." Nevermind that her _parents_ were Muggles...

Ron still hadn't made a move and just sat with a frown. Harry picked up a rolled poster from the scattered remnants and opened it out to show him the moving Quidditch scene on it. "I picked this up thinking of you; see, it's got the Cannons on it."

"Oh, I've got enough posters..." he said, waving the gift away without even turning to look at it.

 _Is he still angry about the Prefect thing?_ Harry wondered. As he let the poster roll up again and made to put it back on the pile, he happened to brush elbows with Ron and knew in a flash that yes, Ron was angry about not getting the Prefect badge - _My one chance to own something that isn't rubbish._

Of course! Mr. and Mrs. Weasley seldom had money to buy their children nice things. Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon, for example, wasn't a proper post-owl but an overly-exciteable creature Sirius had found somewhere to deliver a letter while he was on the run. Ron had also reviled his dress-robe last year, a second-hand travesty of unfashionable ruffles; Harry had told Fred and George to buy him a new one out of the joke shop money he'd given them, although now he supposed that one robe wouldn't really fix things.

But Harry's first year, when Percy had been named Prefect, his parents had gone to extra care and expense as a reward and gotten him his own handsome owl. Ron wasn't angry about being snubbed as a Prefect - Harry didn't even think he wanted the job - but he was sore at missing out on such a gesture from his parents. Harry had already drawn back his arm; he wasn't seeing into his friend's mind anymore, but he could well imagine how such a mood would make all the Ministry's giveaways look like only more rubbish, a reminder of the sort of thing he had to make do with.

Harry wanted to say something, but he didn't know what. More importantly, Ron didn't seem to have noticed him eavesdropping, and Harry certainly didn't want to confess to it.

He turned away to look at Sirius, who thankfully met his eyes this time with a smile. The wooden box from Kingsley was out of sight.

* * *

  
Sirius had evidently gotten Mrs. Weasley to take his money, but her temper resurfaced when Ginny and the twins began spearheading plans for Harry's "Got Off Scot-Free" celebration the next day - she insisted on going school shopping then. At first Harry liked the idea of going to Diagon Alley, where he could get some money from his Gringotts vault and they could celebrate over hot butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron, but when Sirius broached the idea of accompanying them as a dog, Molly was vehement that he should stay hidden at the house. Harry realised that if they all went school shopping, Sirius would be left alone here - which, it now occurred to him, his godfather would be much of the time once term began at school. So he told Mrs. Weasley that he would rather stay behind, if she could please pick up his things and he could pay it back, although Sirius broke in to insist that Molly just use his money.

Once Harry had defected, it seemed all his friends wanted to stay behind and celebrate at Sirius's house rather than buying books, although Ron seemed more disgusted at the thought of shopping than excited about a party. In the end, Mrs. Weasley agreed that Ron and Hermione could stay with Harry, since he was their best friend, but she wouldn't budge on taking Ginny and the twins.

Ginny just pouted, but Fred and George stubbornly protested for the rest of the day, even arguing with her between bites of dinner.

"Don't you think we're a little old to push around in a pram like that!"

"Mum, we're _of age_ for Merlin's sake! We're old enough to decide whether to go on a ruddy _shopping trip!_ "

"You may be of age, but you still live in my house," Molly insisted.

"'My roof, my rules,'" Fred grumbled.

"That's right."

Harry looked over at the twins. They met his gaze for a second and then, in perfect unison, rolled their eyes slyly to one side. He knew better than to ask.

On the pretext of resting up for the trip, Molly bustled Hermione and her children back to the Burrow right after the meal, Fred and George still arguing with her all the way. As the house fell silent, Harry found that the ordeal that morning had left him exhausted, and Sirius and Lupin saw him off to bed early, too.

However, even as he lay there achey with weariness, Harry couldn't fall asleep. Too much had happened that day, and the closer he got to sleeping, the more alarmingly it all churned through his mind, until he finally had to pull himself forcibly from nightmarish visions in the full darkness, of Dumbledore refusing to let Harry get face-to-face with him to take his Prefect badge, of Cornelius Fudge shouting orders from a stone box above the strange black door, of his friends being sucked through that door as if it were a black hole, led by Sirius, who went with his back to Harry and a violet tophat on...

Harry swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up. He sat there for some time, but felt so tired that he knew he would lay down again if he didn't get up, and then it would just be more of the same. That was the last thing he wanted, so he pulled himself to his feet, found his glasses, and crept out into the hallway.

The painted figures dancing on the walls made the darkness less frightening, as if they were leading him along. He quietly opened the blue-starred door of the master bedroom and peeked inside, but it was empty; Sirius hadn't gone to bed yet. Harry continued to the staircase and climbed down. On the floors below, however, there weren't any paintings on the walls, and the Black House looked shadowy and imposing when fully lit, to say nothing of now, at night with all the lights out. He passed the dark drawing room and leaned as hard as he dared against the stairway railing to avoid the house-elf heads and Mrs. Black's curtains looming in the dark.

Only when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs and saw light shining under the kitchen door did he realise he'd been intending to go down there all along, but when he reached out, an invisible force held him back, as if the handle and his hand were mismatched magnets to strong to touch against each other. He tried a few more times to touch the door or listen, but couldn't. Ron had mentioned the Order using Imperturbable charms to protect their meetings; probably they were having one in there now - and were leaving Harry all alone in the house to do it, he thought sourly as he sat down on the stair. He thought of going up to the drawing room and trying to listen at the dumbwaiter shaft, but thought surely that wouldn't work a third time; besides, he was too tired to climb up and face the drawing room in the dark, and the last time he'd listened in on one of these meetings, he had come out of it not at all sure he wanted to know what he'd learned...

So he just sat on the step and soon leaned against the wall and began to nod off. He vaguely felt Mrs. Black up the stairs behind him, but even through his eyelids he was aware of that line of light at the bottom of the door, and it chased away all the dark distractions. It was an awkward way to fall asleep, so he couldn't go down too deeply, but dozing there was strangely peaceful.

Some time later, the sound of the doorhandle woke him.

"Oh, Harry!"

Harry blinked up into a sudden flood of light and voices; even as a silhouette in the doorway, Dumbledore was unmistakable. He turned back toward the kitchen before Harry could even open his mouth, and as Sirius jumped up from the table and hurried toward him, Dumbledore caught his shoulder. "Sirius," he started in a low voice, "I really must insist - "

But Sirius bristled and swatted Dumbledore's hand away. Harry thought he might be dreaming again, watching his godfather lock eyes with the Headmaster. "Now just a moment! Who do you think-!"

"Please, please, it's all right..." Prof. Lupin edged around the two of them, came out of the kitchen and bent down to Harry's level. "Couldn't sleep, I take it. Are you thirsty? Do you need anything?"

Harry drowsily shook his head.

"Is it all right if I take you back upstairs?"

"...yeah..."

"Sleep tight," Sirius said as Lupin helped him up and ushered him back up the stairs.

The movement helped Harry wake up a little and find his voice. "What were you talking about?" he asked over his shoulder, once they were safely out of earshot of the kitchen.

Lupin paused for a moment. "About your hearing mostly."

 _So they were in there talking about me behind my back..._ "Did Dumbledore say anything about why he didn't stay?" It was much too late at night for tact.

"No, I'm afraid not..."

Lupin led him into the Blue Room again. Harry let himself fall to a seat on the edge of the bed, still thinking about the hearing, Miss Figg describing that night in the alley... "I don't know why I couldn't do it..." he said sadly.

"Hm?"

"The Patronus charm, that night with the Dementors. After you taught me... I tried, I just couldn't. I did it once, so why...?"

"When you saved Sirius and Hermione, that was the only time you had cast the charm against real Dementors, wasn't it?" Lupin asked gently.

"Yeah, I think so..."

"And that was a truly remarkable situation, as I understand it." He walked over beside Harry's bed, leaving the door ajar so that he and the room were visible as white highlights in the dark. "Harry, the fact that you have _ever_ cast the Patronus charm is very impressive."

"But if I couldn't when it was important...!"

"When it was important, everyone survived and came through it all right. That's what matters. You're an amazingly talented student, Harry," the professor said, "but you must be realistic with yourself. It's a rare adult wizard who can cast a fully-formed Patronus at all, much less do it while under attack by Dementors. I admit, it's something I've never managed."

Harry blinked at him in the dark. "You've never...? But Hermione said that on the train, you-"

"Not a fully-formed Patronus; only enough, thankfully."

"Which is better than I did..." Harry lamented.

"You're here now. Obviously what you did was enough."

"But I wanted to- I tried to help my cousin..." Harry couldn't even bring himself to say that he had 'wanted to protect Dudley.' "...And it didn't do any good. I might as well have just run for it."

"No, Harry," Lupin said, almost before the words were out of Harry's mouth. "You should never run from Dementors. It's no use; it only exhausts you and gives your fear control of you. If you have somewhere to run _to_ for its own sake, you can leave them behind, but if you only run away from them, they will always catch you."

Harry absorbed the lesson, but didn't know what to say. "Oh."

"So you see, even if it seemed a hopeless thing that you did, it was the right thing. Remember that and have a good night's sleep, won't you?" Lupin suggested. He hesitantly patted Harry's shoulder, then straightened up to leave.

But Harry wasn't ready to let him go yet. "I really can handle being told about things, you know," he announced suddenly.

Lupin paused in mid-turn. "I know you can," he said. "But sometimes there are reasons."

"What reasons?"

"That's beside the point," the professor said with a slight wave of his hand, which made it flicker like a moth in the doorway-light. "What I mean to say is that I know Sirius is right. You're old enough to want to know things and to find them out on your own. It's what we would have done... But sometimes it isn't that we don't have faith in you, or that we want to keep you in the dark. Sometimes there are good reasons why we want you to trust us and not go prying."

"Right..." But if they didn't trust him to decide for himself about those reasons, it seemed just as bad; it seemed right back where he'd started. And he frankly doubted what Lupin was saying in Mrs. Weasley's case. He was a little ashamed of how much he'd enjoyed watching her face turn red when she found out her children had heard her whole fight with Sirius, the thing Lupin had just referred to. "-Hey, you were asleep when Sirius said that," Harry realised.

"Oh, well, I suppose I was."

Harry stared at him until he explained.

"As I'm sure you've gathered, Sirius and Molly often don't see eye-to-eye, and while there's nothing wrong with that as such, I'd begun to notice myself being used as a hedge in between them. It was unfair of me, I admit, but... I wanted to seem less available for that function in the future."

In other words, Harry thought, Lupin had wanted to show Mrs. Weasley it wasn't such a good idea to hand the kids off to him so she could shout at Sirius not to tell them anything. He smiled, but for only a moment. Thinking of Sirius not seeing eye-to-eye with someone...

Lupin had started away again, and Harry brought him up short. "What is it with Sirius and Dumbledore?"

He froze with his hand on the doorknob. "Oh! Well..." he said, too quickly for it to be nothing, "I shouldn't think that's for me to talk about..."

Harry flopped back onto the pillow. "I know, I know. There are reasons. I have no right to ask..." he grumped. He stretched out and kicked his feet under the blankets, expecting that Lupin would leave him to go back to sleep like that.

Instead, the room was silent for a full minute before the professor spoke. "No, Harry," he sighed. "You have every right to ask... About something that affected you..."

Harry pulled himself up to a seat again, suddenly wide awake as Lupin came over and sat down on the foot of his bed. His white-lit profile looked at the floor. "I don't know if anyone told you about when Sirius was sent to Azkaban, that there was no trial..."

"Yeah, Sirius told me that Mr. Crouch just put him away..."

"Foremostly it was Crouch's idea, but... Even at the height of his power, he couldn't make such a decision alone. To deny someone a hearing, the Wizengamot had to vote unanimously."

Harry caught his breath; already he remembered Dumbledore entering the chamber that morning, _"Though I am but a former member of the council."_ "Dumbledore was-!"

"Was on the Wizengamot at that time, yes."

Harry's mind reeled; but then, he had already known that Dumbledore testified against Sirius. Harry's parents had protected their hiding place with the Fidelius Charm, so they could only have been betrayed by their Secret Keeper, the one person who knew and could tell where they were. Dumbledore had told the council that that was Sirius. Like everyone else, he had thought that it was Sirius; he hadn't been told about the last-minute switch, that the real Secret Keeper-turned-traitor was Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail. But how could Dumbledore make such a horrible mistake, when he always seemed to know everything!

"Why?" Harry asked. "How could he not have known-! Why didn't Sirius tell him back then, what really happened? Why didn't he tell _somebody!_ "

Lupin let his head fall back to face the ceiling. "He didn't tell anyone... because no one asked."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that. It was worse than only being denied a trial. No one ever so much as went to Sirius in prison to ask him why he did it, or if he could explain himself," Lupin said sadly, facing Harry at last. "Not the Ministry, not Dumbledore... Not even me."

As he finished speaking, a shadow fell across his face from the doorway. "Yes, I can just see that now:" - Sirius's voice made them both jump - "'I'm here to see Sirius Black; I'm his friend the werewolf.' They'd have found you a cell on the opposite side of the place."

"Even so, I could have spoken to Albus or done _something_..."

"Well, after I-" Sirius started but cut off. "Remus Lupin, I will not get into an apologising contest with you. I don't blame you, and just in case it _is_ your fault I forgive you; now if I hear you moping about it again, so help me I'll turn you into a bassett hound so you can at least look the part properly!"

Lupin jolted up very straight and stared at him speechlessly.

"Alastor's working out night duty schedules down there," Sirius said.

"Oh. Well, sleep well, Harry," Lupin said as he rose and left.

Sirius watched after him through the lighted portal for a moment, casting a shadow across the entire room, before he closed the door behind his friend and came over to Harry's bed in the dark.

"Sirius...?"

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Sirius said. "That was all a long time ago; it doesn't do any good worrying about it now." He chuckled, a disembodied sound in the blackness. "I've given Molly enough gray hairs, I suppose I deserved a taste of my own medicine... Just go to sleep. It's all right."

Harry wasn't so sure, but before he could think of where to begin saying anything, he heard a pop and felt the familiar weight of Sirius as a dog jumping up onto the bed and curling around his feet.

When Harry lay back down, he couldn't even try to sort through it all in his mind with Sirius there, as if afraid that somehow the thoughts would leak out and his godfather would overhear them and find him out. Most nights Harry would have been annoyed by the lack of privacy, but now it was a blessing as he was finally able to settle down to sleep.

* * *

  
The next morning the sun shone brightly through the window when Harry woke to the sound of the dumbwaiter bell. Sirius flopped down onto the floor and Harry let him out of the room before getting dressed. When he came out, "Snuffles" was sitting dutifully by the door, waiting to accompany him down to the kitchen with shaggy black tail wagging.

Lupin was there heating the teakettle on the stove, and Ron and Hermione were already at the table, where a plate sat piled full of piping-hot cinnamon rolls dripping with melted frosting. Another plate with a single roll had been laid out for Harry, as well as a glass of milk. Ron was already munching, but Hermione had waited for him.

"Morning, everybody," Harry said as he took a seat. Sirius sat down on the floor near his chair, apparently preferring to stay as a dog.

"Morning," Ron mumbled.

Hermione dispensed with greetings. "You're not going to believe it!" she said, pulling her schoolbag up into her lap. She produced a torn-out section of newspaper from it. "Listen to this!"

"She had to smuggle that past Mum, by the way," Ron put in before she began reading.

"'Dumbledore, Marchbanks Release Potter From Inquiry.

"'Yesterday morning Harry Potter was summoned to a preliminary hearing at the Ministry of Magic'-"

"'Preliminary'?" Harry echoed incredulously.

"-'To answer charges that he had cast a spectacular spell in front of a Muggle witness, the spell being detected by the Ministry earlier this summer. Potter showed contempt for the hearing from the beginning, arriving in a disheveled state and refusing even to sit down in one of the Ministry's chairs that was not to his liking.'"

Harry was washing his first bite of cinnamon roll down with milk and nearly choked on it.

"'He freely admitted to casting the spell in question and to the presence of the Muggle witness, offering as a defense an impossible tale of Dementor attack. Despite this seemingly unbalanced presentation, Potter had powerful allies. Albus Dumbledore appeared unsummoned and proceeded to derail the hearing with claims of proving Potter's story. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, presiding, found himself having to prevent Dumbledore from summoning a house-elf as a witness. The one witness whom Dumbledore did summon (whose name this reporter maintains as confidential)'-"

"Whose name they won't admit to, they mean!" Harry said.

Hermione continued. "The one witness 'was a known werewolf sympathiser, but also a personal acquaintance of several judges and thus able to manipulate their votes. Even Wizengamot Elder Griselda Marchbanks departed from her usual professional demeanor and relaxed procedures to indulge Potter and allow Dumbledore's theatrics.

"'When the vote was called, the nine judges split five-to-four, with Marchbanks casting the deciding vote. She was heard by reporters dismissing the charges as a mere technicality, despite a possible violation of the Magical Secrecy Omnibus Act'-"

"That's not what it was like at all!" Harry lamented angrily.

"We know," Ron assured him.

"-'And even regarded it as "unfortunate" that Dumbledore was unable to use a house-elf's testimony,'" Hermione read. "'Doubts have been expressed in some circles about Marchbanks' judgement in other matters as well; see today's op/ed page for views on her support of radical Goblin groups.'"

"I know something about Griselda's Goblin views," Lupin offered. "She's rather outspoken about the laws banning them from skilled crafts and trades. I would agree with her that those are unfair."

"So would I," Hermione said, slapping the piece of newsprint down on the table before she finally took a cinnamon roll and started unravelling it.

Harry picked up the paper with sugar-sticky fingers, but looked up at the sound of the oven door. Prof. Lupin took another pan of rolls out and began spreading frosting on them, and Harry noticed that his patched old trousers were dusted white with flour. "You made these?"

"Yes, since I knew you were taking the day to celebrate."

"I didn't know you could cook," Harry said.

"Oh, only a little."

Sirius barked, Harry thought in protest of Lupin's modesty. Harry set one of the rolls on the floor for him and smiled to watch him push it all around with his nose trying to get bites of it.

"They're very good, Professor," Hermione said.

"You don't have to call me 'Professor,' you know. I'm not your teacher anymore," Lupin said, a little sadly.

"As far as I'm concerned, you'll always be our teacher," Hermione maintained. That coaxed a smile out of him.

Harry smiled too in private agreement, then glanced over the torn-out newspaper article. He just skimmed the first few paragraphs, which Hermione had read, but it went on to quote Fudge as saying that for an orphan like Harry, who'd been whisked suddenly into a world where he was famous for rescuing Wizardkind from "the one who must not be named," it was only natural for him to crave attention, and even to manufacture danger and rescue scenarios to keep it coming, poor love-starved child that he was. Harry grimaced; he was quite happy to do without Fudge's attention. But Fudge had told the reporters that he was more mystified and disturbed about Dumbledore's possible motive in fostering these scares, and his refusal to comment about such things regarding Griselda Marchbanks only served to cast more aspersions on her. He further made certain to assure readers that unsanctioned Dementor attacks were unheard of and that the Azkaban guards were not aggressive; _Not aggressive my foot!_ Harry certainly hoped that the time third year when a Dementor had tried to Kiss him had been "unsanctioned," but cynically thought that that didn't seem so certain anymore.

Worse yet, they'd wrapped up the article by asking for comments from Amos Diggory - Cedric's father. Immediately after Cedric's death, Amos had only thanked Harry gravely for bringing back the body, but now he was in the paper saying he wasn't sure. No doubt he'd been assaulted with the reporters' insinuations; Harry could practically read them between the lines: "Isn't it strange that these things keep happening to Harry Potter in ways no one else can prove?" "As the only witness to whatever killed your son, wouldn't he have every reason to want to make himself look like a hero, regardless of what really happened?" "If you're not sure he saw these rogue Dementors, how can you be sure he saw You-Know-Who?" Really, Harry knew he should be thankful that Mr. Diggory wasn't turning on him completely to accuse him of killing Cedric, but when they quoted him as saying "I don't know what to think about Harry Potter anymore; I need to know the truth about what happened to my son," it was more than enough to make Harry feel sick, and he pushed his cinnamon roll aside.

"The part about Mr. Diggory?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. He crumpled the newspaper and, with Mrs. Weasley gone, just threw it on the floor.

"They've been doing that to him all summer," Ron said, grimacing with disgust and adding some colorful names for the Daily Prophet writers now that his mother wasn't there to hear him. "Why they can't just leave the poor guy alone..."

"They're doing it to get at me," Harry grumbled.

"I wouldn't say that," Prof. Lupin broke in to argue softly. "They're doing it for fear of _him_ , afraid of having to realise that he's back. People will do ugly things for anger or hatred, but I think nothing is as ugly as what they'll do out of fear. Sadly you and Amos happen to be in the path of it this time."

Sirius rested his furry head on Harry's lap and looked up at him so that a narrow rim of white cupped his irises - they were now a rich canine brown rather than the striking cold gray of his human eyes. "What is it this morning?" Harry asked. "Are you just having fun being a dog?"

Sirius nodded, and Harry managed a smile and scratched him behind the ear.

Professor Lupin picked up the wad of newspaper from the floor and tossed it onto the coals in the oven to burn. "It's time I was turning in and leaving you to your party," he said. "Snuffles" turned from Harry's lap and trotted over to him. "Yes, I know you'll take good care of them," Lupin said, giving Sirius's head and shoulders a brisk, friendly rub before departing up the stairs. "Have a good time."

His departure brought a long pause. Harry toyed with his cinnamon roll a bit, but didn't regain the apetite for more than one or two more bites of it.

"So..." Ron said, "what do you want to do?"

Without Ginny and the twins, it wasn't so easy to think how to have a day of festive fun at the Black House, at least not under adult supervision, although Snuffles did seem like the next best thing to having the place to themselves. A day with no housework was a relief, but the morning passed in rather lackluster diversions. They took food and water up to the attic for Buckbeak and stroked his feathers; they sorted through Harry's Chocolate Frog cards and browsed the same Muggle Machines magazine again. Harry and Ron got out the miniature gobstones set from the Ministry and tried playing with it, but it was so small that they had trouble moving the pieces accurately and the game ended by being abandoned after the stones had thoroughly spat on them both - "No wonder they were giving these away," Harry admitted. Meanwhile Snuffles dozed lightly by the fireplace and Hermione attached a fan-folded scrap of parchment to a magical string from her wand for Crookshanks to chase it all over the Blue Room. A few times Harry caught himself becoming so bored that he was tempted to start sorting through boxes again.

After a lunch of leftover-meat sandwiches, Sirius perked up his ears and led the way back upstairs wagging his tail. He nosed open the door of an unused bedroom which was painted with blue figures like the hall, albeit somewhat more soberly. When Harry followed him into the room, he padded over to a corner where two leftover cans of blue paint were stacked up, took the handle of one in his mouth, and carried it into the hallway. Harry brought the other can out after him as Ron pried the lid off the first, whereupon Sirius stepped on the rim and tipped it over, spilling paint all over his own front feet, but apparently that had been the idea. He went bounding down the hall, wagging his tail and leaving splattery blue pawprints.

"Well, he did say we should do that sometime," Harry recalled. He pulled off his shoes and socks and tossed them in the door of the Blue Room before walking experimentally through the blue puddle and tracking paint out the other side. The thick liquid was slick under his feet and felt gloppy between his toes, but also pleasantly cool at first. In any case he had to grin at what he was doing.

Ron took off his shoes and started tracking paint, too, which finally seemed to lighten his mood. Hermione excused herself to change clothes. When she got back in an old tee shirt and summer sandals, she caught Ron trying to put an unhappy Crookshanks' feet down in the paint and shouted at him to stop it. In her vehemence, she slapped him on the back of the head, letting Crookshanks spring from his hands and dart off.

"I wasn't going to hurt him!" Ron protested.

"He could've licked the paint off his paws and gotten sick or something! Besides, just because he's not a human doesn't make it okay to bully him! You wouldn't think of picking me up and dropping me in that paint if I didn't want you to, so-"

"I don't know, maybe I would," Ron said, and took a step toward her.

"Oh, don't you dare!"

As Hermione ran a few steps down the hall, both of them were smiling, but before Ron could chase her, Sirius trotted in between them. He just stopped and looked back and forth at the two of them like a friendly, curious dog, but Harry knew that he'd stepped in to make sure things didn't get out of hand.

"What was the spell you used that once," Harry asked him, "to let me climb up the wall?"

Sirius finally turned human again; his front paws translated into paint-covered fingers. "Oh, yes, _'Arachnomanus'_ \- the Spider Feet charm. You don't know that one?"

"I think it was in last year's book, but we never covered it in class," Hermione said.

"Oh, if James and I had kept ourselves to what we'd covered in class, we'd never have had any fun," he told her. Since the students weren't allowed to use magic outside school, Sirius cast the charm on them all, including himself, and told them about how it was done. "...Although the trouble with this one is that if you lose contact with what you're walking on, you'll come unstuck, so you can't move around too quickly..."

Harry dipped his hands in the paint and climbed up the wall, at first on all fours as he'd done in the drawing room, but then he experimentally straightened up. His footing remained firm and it took no extra effort to keep from falling over toward the floor, but he still felt a vague sense of downward gravity, a thrilling roller-coaster-like sensation in his belly, and it was pleasantly bizarre to look up at Ron and be seeing him sideways.

"Now, come on," Ron had taken Hermione by the wrists. He gently pulled her hands down and she laughed as he dipped them in the paint.

"It just feels so odd to be doing something like this," she said.

"Well, it's Sirius's house, and he seems to think it's all right."

"It's not as if you can make the place look worse," Sirius confirmed.

That reminded Harry in a roundabout way... "That's one thing that's interesting about this house," he said, tiptoeing around the blue dog painted on the wall. "It kind of goes to show you that money isn't everything."

"Oh?" Ron turned to him.

"Well, look at all the stuff in here. If someone was going to buy it, it'd cost a fortune, but really it's all just worthless trash."

"I'll say it is," Sirius agreed.

"It's not half as nice as what you and your folks have," Harry told Ron.

His friend showed a smile, but a sour one. "I'll trade you."

"You wouldn't want all this cursed dark magic stuff, would you?" Hermione questioned.

"'Course not! I wouldn't keep it, just sell it all and buy myself a real owl."

"Oh, hush, Pigwidgeon might hear you!"

"Right now everything here is too traceable for that - but once my name is cleared, come talk to me," Sirius joked. He turned back into a dog and trotted through the paint, then up a wall and onto the ceiling.

It seemed a waste to use the charm and then just track paint on the floor, and the walls were already well decorated, so the others followed Sirius and they all mostly climbed around on the ceiling. Childlike playfulness took hold as they tried leaving different kinds of blue footprints - sometimes taking short steps, sometimes long ones, sometimes shuffling their feet in a herringbone pattern or hopping on all fours to leave pairs of handprints and footprints side-by-side. Hermione ventured onto the wall and drew looping lines of sandal-prints around the older pictures with fussy heel-to-toe steps before going back to the floor to open the last can of paint. She started pouring it in a long line down the hallway, but dropped the rest and gave a scream to match Sirius's howl of alarm when Harry forgot not to lose contact with the ceiling, began running across it, and nearly fell. Ron was able to catch him by the knees and pull him back "down" until he could touch the wall and get his footing again.

Just as he was saying "I'm okay now, I'm all right," they heard footsteps running up the stairway, and a moment later Mrs. Weasley burst in. At the sight of the blue paint tracked and splattered everywhere and Ron, Harry, and Sirius-as-a-dog looking down at her from the ceiling, she turned a frightening shade of white before succumbing to an angry flush of red. " ** _SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK!_** " She shrieked the name so loudly as to rival the downstairs portrait.

 _Pop!_ "What did I do now?"

Mrs. Weasley marched right up to Sirius; they stood face to face, with the complication that he was standing upside down on the ceiling with his longish hair falling "upward" toward the floor. He just crossed his arms and stood straight in front of the oncoming onslaught, even as Harry found himself compelled to slink shamefacedly back down to the floor and Ron did the same. Harry saw Ginny just peek in through the stairway portal, and when her eldest brother, Bill Weasley in his ponytail and leather jacket, came in behind his mother, even he seemed to hang back timidly from her.

"' ** _What did you do?'! You ought to know very well! I trust you to look after the children for ONE DAY, and you...!_** "

"And I what?" he questioned.

" ** _Playing with Reversed Gravity - they could be killed!_** "

"Spider Feet, actually. Otherwise my hair wouldn't-"

" ** _That spell is still not a toy! How am I supposed to leave my children with you-! How am I supposed to leave HARRY with you when you're nothing an overgrown child yourself!_** "

" _So I remember what it's like to be that age!_ " Sirius insisted, finally raising his voice and leaning into her aggressively. " _The fact that **you** apparently **can't** hasn't been helping **Fred and George** any!_ "

Mrs. Weasley started back from him and again turned white for an instant. " ** _Y- you- YOU LEAVE MY CHILDREN OUT OF THIS!_** " she screamed.

" ** _WELL THEN YOU LEAVE MINE OUT OF IT!_** " Sirius roared back.

" ** _HARRY'S NOT YOUR CHILD!_** "

" ** _YES HE IS!_** "

The shock had worn off enough for an infectious spark of anger to strike in Harry's mind. He opened his mouth to shout at them both that he wasn't _a_ child, that he wasn't any love-starved orphan waif who needed coddling from _either_ of them-

But Mrs. Weasley was faster. " ** _You've never had a child!_** " she shouted at Sirius. " ** _You don't know what it MEANS to have a child!_** "

" **Yes I do, Molly!** " Sirius's voice had lowered in volume, but that was more than made up for in the grim set of his face and the crushing certainty of his tone. "I **do** know what it's like, when the best for them is the first thing, no matter what! When they're far away, no matter where they are, I know what it's like to feel them always right there, to feel them in your blood! I knew what that was like for twelve years and they could never take it away from me! **So don't you tell me I don't know what it means!** "

Harry's objections were drowned in his godfather's words, which flooded over his face with such bracing heat that he could hardly breathe. As he dashed into the Blue Room, he only heard a cacophony of sounds - a door opening, probably Lupin looking out to see what was happening, Mrs. Weasley's broken wail, and footsteps that must be her and some of her children running for the stairway - before he slammed the door behind him and threw himself on his bed. It was all too heavy to push aside, and too intense to even think about, so he just lay there curled tightly around it, even as Mrs. Black's portrait downstairs began screaming at Sirius all over again.

He didn't even know when the noise stopped. He had no sense of anything, but only knew that some time had passed and everything had gone quiet before someone hesitantly opened and closed the door.

"Harry? Are you okay?"

It was Ginny; he was almost surprised to find that he could get up and turn around to answer her. "Yeah..."

"Sorry about all that."

He saw no need for an apology from her and waved it away distractedly.

"Bill and Ronnie are trying to get Mum calmed down, and Hermione and Professor Lupin took off after Sirius; he's kicking himself somewhere."

"Good," Harry said, but he was immediately sick at himself for it. He only wished Sirius hadn't said- No, that wasn't true, but he somehow wished he hadn't heard it; not like that...

"Well, it wasn't his fault," Ginny argued. "I mean, I wish he hadn't gone after Mum the way he did, but she did just tear into him without warning him what was wrong..."

Harry gave a sniff. "I'll tell you what's wrong," he grumbled. "What's wrong is Poor Little Harry's a fragile baby who'll break if you let him _know_ anything or _do_ anything..."

"No, no, it wasn't anything like that. Not this time anyway," Ginny said. She offered Harry a folded piece of parchment which turned out to be a hand-written note.

BB _B_ -  
In town shopping against our  
will. Mum pulled the old My Roof  
My Rules bit, so we ditched her  
at F&B and are crashing with  
Lee for the rest of holiday.  
Need you to find her and  
tell her - _Sorry!_

Love to all, incl. Mum -but  
 _tell her to lighten up!_

F+G

"'Big Brother Bill' got that at work and he had to come find us," Ginny explained. "Mum was already at her wits' end hunting for them. Actually ran into Bill just outside Gringotts; she was ready to leave me with him and go check Knockturn Alley..."

Harry stared at the note in disbelief. "I'm really sorry..."

"It's all right," she said. "It's not like anything bad happened to them. This might be better for everybody, and if they'd tried telling her first, it just would've been worse..."

He nodded numbly. "Maybe..."

Harry handed the note back. He just sat there, Ginny still standing beside him, in a long awkward silence. Finally she bent over and gave him a hug that pressed one of her braids against his cheek. "I'm glad your hearing went okay," she said, then left and shut the door behind her, leaving Harry with the Blue Room to himself.

Several minutes after Ginny's footsteps had faded away, Harry heard a voice in the hall. He slowly crossed to the door and opened it a crack to look; Kreacher was attacking the paint on the floor with scouring charms, muttering angrily to himself.

" _...Filthy blood-traitor Young Master... Mudblood and mongrel worms defile My Lady's house..._ "

Not being Kreacher's master, there wasn't anything Harry could do about him, so he just shut the door again and tried to ignore the sound.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Ten: The Hogwarts X-Press**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Nine_

Longest chapter wait ever, I know. I'm not even going to try to explain it; I'll just say that I'll try not to let years go by before the next one, but updates will happen when they happen. (Prodding at me, especially on my LJ, really doesn't help, BTW; just something about me, I guess.) As much of an ordeal as the releases of HBP and DH were for an OotP atheist like myself, they at least tended to give me spurts of creative energy, overtones of outrage and frustration notwithstanding.

Harry and Ginny had the decency to let me know about their subtle moment at the end there a little in advance, but earlier with the tracking paint, Hermione and Ron just totally sprung the sexual tension on me while I was typing.

And the Molly vs. Sirius subplot comes to a head. I don't want Molly to look bad, but I'm afraid it might be a difficult thing for me to avoid.

Finally, re: the conversation with Lupin where he drops the "no one asked," well... The more I thought about the backstory revealed in PoA, about James and Lily's decision, Sirius's imprisonment, etc., the more I found that it raised a number of issues and invited a good deal more exploration and explanation that what it got in canon AFAIK. That's one of the things I'm trying to address here, and in fact to some extent I'd say I spend my rest of the series working through it.

  



	10. The Hogwarts X-Press

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Ten  
 _The Hogwarts X-Press_**

Between the Weasley Twins' absence and everyone's lingering shock at Molly and Sirius's row, the atmosphere around the Black House was more subdued for the rest of the holiday, but by then there were less than two weeks left before September 1st and the trip to Hogwarts.

No badge ever arrived for Harry, so he finally had to let go of the theory that the Headmaster had just reserved it for him until after the hearing. At least, though, that notion gave way slowly enough for the disappointment to come in manageable bits. By the last days of August, Hermione's chattering about her duties had Harry wondering why he or anyone else would ever want to be a Prefect, although he still had to wonder, if it wasn't him or Ron, who could it be? Maybe Dean...

As the date approached, Sirius also became more insistent on accompanying them to King's Cross station. Harry didn't blame him and in fact wanted him along, since it could be the last time he and his godfather saw each other until Christmas holiday, but at the same time, he didn't like the idea of taking Sirius out in public where someone might see him. Mrs. Weasley, however, would have been the strongest opposition, and she now seemed afraid to argue. The adults finally worked out a plan in which they would take Sirius with them to the station as a dog; he even agreed to "sit," "heel," and follow other basic commands. The day before the trip, Lupin got back from night duty a bit late, having stopped by a pet shop and gotten Sirius a harness with a leash, and also a safety break-away collar whose tag gave the name "Snuffles" and Miss Figg's address.

Harry had left most of his things in his trunk and was able to pack up the rest very quickly. Ron and Hermione had to do their packing at the Burrow, and Harry would've liked to follow them, but decided to stay behind on his last day with Sirius. That evening he again had the Blue Room to himself, and again his godfather curled up as a dog on the foot of his bed, but the trip the next day kept Harry awake and restless. After a little while, he got up, smoothed the covers down, and fetched more from another bed rather than pull them loose from under Sirius, so that he could lay down the other way. His feet pushed the pillow against the headboard as he rested his head on Snuffles' shaggy body, just behind the shoulder. The dog gave a sleepy snort and resettled himself; a moment later his tail could be heard patting against the bed.

One last night here... Also, Harry thought, it was one last night with the secret: what Voldemort was after, the thing Sirius refused to tell him. Harry didn't think he'd find out in the next twelve hours. Indeed, if this school year would be anything like previous ones, he might be better able to find out from there, but he couldn't help but be fascinated by it. For one last night, the answer was right here, wrapped in the snoring breaths just an inch beneath his ear... Laying still so as not to disturb Sirius, he drowsed off listening to that sleepy rhythm.

Harry was walking around the edge of a circular room. With every seventh step, he passed the same black door, tested the knob and found that it would open, but continued on, beckoned by another door beyond. This had become quite habitual when he came to another black door, just like all the others, but when he took the doorknob and turned it, it wouldn't move.

At that he stopped. He tried to rattle the knob, but it remained frozen as if carved in stone. He pushed and pulled it, but couldn't move the door a milimetre. He yanked it, pounded it, kicked it, wrenched the knob until his arms throbbed with strain, his palms were rubbed raw, and tears of frustration burned his eyes. _You can't keep me out!_ he declared in his mind, and forsaking the knob he put his hand _through_ the door - not striking it as if to open it, just putting his hand into the room beyond, knowing that the door couldn't stop him, and it passed through. Harry followed that hand; he walked through the door as if it were a curtain of water.

Every part of him that passed into it felt as if it had found something warm and safe, but when he came through completely, he was spit out into a dank, lightless place, as foreboding as going through Sirius's Unwelcoming-Charmed door. When he turned around, the black door he'd passed through turned out to be cold iron, and he knew he couldn't go through it again.

But he wouldn't need to. Sirius was there, at the opposite end of the space. Harry called to him, but his godfather wouldn't answer - like Dumbledore refusing to face him? Harry knew that Sirius was hiding something to his chest and wouldn't turn around, so he started across the blackness toward him, although the ground caught at his feet and tripped him up with every step. Sirius didn't want him to see and began walking away, but Harry focused his effort, scrambled over the brambly black floor and closed the distance. He caught hold of Sirius's elbow and pulled him around where he could see-

They were standing together in a pool of sickly evening light. Sirius held the edge of a wooden rail painted smooth, glossy white. As Harry ran his hand along it, he recognised it as a baby's crib - but there was no baby. Inside, he saw only a blanket wadded into one corner and an orange teddy bear. Harry picked them up; nothing was hidden in the blanket, and nothing else was there but the pristine white mattress.

The teddy bear fell from his hand and bounced off something on the ground before coming to rest. Harry looked down and saw it laying against curls of red - a woman laying facedown, utterly motionless even as the breeze tugged at her hair. _**Mother!**_

His mind cried out, and an echo came back to him in Sirius's voice. _James and Lily's house..._

Harry looked up. There was now light on the black floor, revealing indeed the wreckage of a destroyed house. The ground was a twisted bramble of rubble and smashed wooden beams. His mother lay dead at his feet. The same sick fire filled him, the same sensation as in Sirius's memory, the cold wind shivering his skin even as everything beneath it burned like red coals... _What happened?_

 _He knew_ , came the echo.

Harry numbly began picking his way through the debris. _...Wormtail knew where...?_

 _No. ...He...Knew..._

Only those words, but Harry could catch something of the thoughts within them. It wasn't referring to Wormtail's crime, but to someone else - Harry couldn't tell who - someone else who had known the secret that Sirius was keeping. Harry looked back at him; they were several yards apart now. Sirius hadn't moved; he still clung to the side of the empty crib.

Harry glanced downward and found a smashed pair of glasses at his feet. Half-concealed by a fallen piece of wall was a limply-curled hand, a shock of untidy black hair... Harry froze; his insides knotted up, and by the sensation in his belly he knew that he was still frozen there even as some part of him, like a ghost, moved around the fallen figure, reached for the wild locks concealing the forehead. The thought terrified him so that the air seemed almost to freeze solid as he tried to push his hand through, but he had to know...

 _Is it Dad? Or could it be...?_

His reaching fingers were ripped away from their goal by a raw, shrieking howl. Harry was thrown hard awake on the bed in the Blue Room with Sirius-as-a-dog crying out and struggling under his head. His hind paws kicked and scratched Harry's back in his panic before he finally freed himself and flopped onto the floor.

"Sirius!" Harry cried.

The dog turned back, but snuffed at his face for only a moment before slouching away making low whines. As best Harry could tell in the dark without his glasses, Sirius curled up and settled himself in front of the fireplace, and Harry stared after him for a long time before finally giving up and laying his head down again.

He didn't want to move, not even to turn himself back to the pillow-end of the bed, so he just lay on the crook of his elbow. As Lupin had said, he'd found himself reading minds when he looked into people's eyes or touched their skin. Laying against Sirius, he'd apparently been doing it even in his sleep and had chased his godfather away. He pressed his eyes against his arm.

But what did it mean? Twice now, he'd mentally questioned Sirius about his secret, and both times the "answer" had brought him to the night of his parents' deaths - their destroyed house, their bodies... The secret thing had somehow caused that, and now Voldemort was after it! Harry vowed in his heart that Voldemort would never get whatever it was - but how could Harry help keep him from it when he knew practically nothing about what he'd just sworn to guard?

After all, he hadn't thought there was really any mystery left behind his parents' deaths. Wormtail had betrayed them and told Voldemort where to find them. The Dark Lord had attacked them with Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse. What more was there to explain? What else was left that the secret could be? Harry wondered if it could be some sort of weapon that Voldemort had used, but the idea didn't make any sense...

Nothing made any sense. _Stop it; just stop it_ , he thought at himself, willing his mind to stop moving, but it would not. He had to say it in his mind over and over to keep from tangling himself up in more ponderings and questions, but even keeping them at bay, he couldn't fall asleep again and only curled up tight with his face buried in his arms.

Harry dozed in fitful snatches that left him feeling very little rested, but once the first pale rays of sunlight shone through the windows, it was useless for him to try to sleep any more. He draped his pajama shirt over Snuffles' eyes before getting dressed in the clothes he had set out. Should he say something to Sirius about last night? What could he say? An apology seemed appropriate, but would he be giving himself away? Sirius probably wouldn't have run away from him if he hadn't known it was Harry doing something, but...

When he was dressed he went to fetch the shirt and put it in his trunk; as he lifted it, Sirius reverted with a pop, and Harry uncovered him like a stage magician's trick producing a bird.

"'Morning," Harry said. He might have been able to give Snuffles a quick "sorry about last night," but found he couldn't say it to his godfather's human face.

"Good morning," Sirius yawned. "Excited about your trip?"

"Yeah. -Not that I want to get away from you or anything," Harry hastily added.

"Oh, kids are supposed to want to get away from their parents. I wouldn't take it personally," Sirius said. He picked himself up, found his wand, and once Harry had stowed his pyjamas in his trunk, Sirius floated it up from the floor and started leading it out the door.

"I mean it," Harry insisted, following. "It seems like every time I see you, next thing I know, one of us is leaving again."

"Let me know when you have Hogsmeade weekends; I'll try to make it."

The two of them went down toward the kitchen; Sirius let Harry pass him on the stairway landing and lead the way down, carefully tiptoeing around Mrs. Black's portrait and down the stairs. People were already awake and talking inside the kitchen; Harry felt welcomed by the sound although he didn't understand their words, but when he paused in front of the door and made to open it, he realised that Sirius's footsteps and shadow had frozen. Harry gave him a questioning look, but he only stood there halfway down the stairs, holding the trunk in the air.

"...Still strange is all I'm saying." Harry recognised Prof. Moody's growly voice through the kitchen door. "Never been done before, and he's not the first Animagus they ever put away - or the first innocent man, either."

"Yes, but he was the first Padfoot Black." Prof. Lupin's much-softer tone was harder to make out, even where Harry was standing.

"How do you figure it, Remus? Or _do_ you? Twelve years is more than anything but the worst scum ever _survived_ it, much less _escaping_. You know as well as I do, no one's ever come out of that place that wasn't black as tar or weak as water. Decent people can't take Dementors that long; it just can't be-"

Sirius floated the trunk down to the floor beside Harry, and at the slight _clunk_ of it touching down, Moody's voice stopped as if turned off with a switch. Harry didn't need to open the door to see Moody's "Mad Eye" swivel around and fix on Sirius.

Sirius apparently didn't, either. Harry mouthed his name, but he just sighed and shook his head and started back up the stairs. At the sound of footsteps in the kitchen, Harry ran back up after him and was just turning the corner by Estelle's portrait when the door opened.

Sirius stopped and looked down over the railing; Lupin stood with one foot on the bottom stair. For a long moment, Harry glanced back and forth between them: his old teacher looking up with sad but warm eyes, and his godfather looking down with a cold frown.

"He doesn't understand," Lupin said at last.

Sirius was silent for a moment. "Get Harry some breakfast, will you?" With that he continued up the stairs and out of sight.

"Harry?" Lupin beckoned him down to the kitchen. "...He'll be all right."

Harry hesitantly followed him. Inside the kitchen, Moody was pouring tea into his personal flask, then staring into it and swishing it around before drinking it. Harry frowned at him as he sat down; after last night, he'd been hoping that this morning with Sirius would be a bit better, but apparently no such luck.

Moody's magical eye only flicked over him briefly, though; apparently his surly glare didn't seem like a threat. Both of Moody's eyes mostly tracked Lupin as he set the milk and juice out from the icebox and fetched breakfast dishes.

"Poached eggs?" Lupin asked.

"Actually, I'm not hungry," Harry said, pouring himself some juice, which he nursed slowly.

"I suppose you're angry that he heard me now," Moody said finally.

Lupin put a pan of water on to the stove and stayed silent for several moments. "I'm more angry that you didn't mean him to hear you."

Harry just stared away toward the fireplace and hoped that Ron and Hermione would come soon.

Moody departed on some sort of urgent business even before Lupin's saucepan came to a boil, but Harry remained sullen, so the kitchen left to the two of them was quiet until the fireplace flared green and Ron, Hermione, and Ginny came through, all dragging their school trunks, with Mrs. Weasley bringing up the rear. Once they arrived, the kitchen was warmly cluttered with luggage and people and voices. Mrs. Weasley took over the stove and soon had it sizzling; Pigwidgeon flapped about excitedly in his dented cage, and a litany of angry meowings issued from Crookshanks' blanket-draped crate even as Hermione cooed comfortingly over it.

Harry had put off caging up Hedwig, but when breakfast was almost done, he went upstairs with Ron to fetch her, and Sirius came back to the kitchen with them. Being a well-trained post owl, she stayed quite calm for the most part, but on the last turn of the stair, Harry passed her a bit too close to Mrs. Black's curtains. Hedwig tried to flap away from them, swinging her cage back from the painting, but then it had to swing forth again-

" _ **SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK! SHAME OF MY FLESH!**_ _IT WOULD KILL YOUR FATHER ALL OVER AGAIN IF HE COULD SEE THE MONGRELS AND BEASTS TO WHOM YOU'VE GIVEN HIS MAGNIFICENT HOUSE! . . ._ "

Harry jostled Hedwig worse than he would've liked as he fled down the stairs trying to cover his ears. Ron was right on his heels, and Sirius slammed the kitchen door behind the three of them.

"THEY SAY THEY STILL HAVEN'T FOUND A NEW DEFENSE PROFESSOR!" Hermione shouted over the portrait's screaming as they came in. Mrs. Weasley was dishing up plates for them.

Hermione offered a Daily Prophet - as if Harry could hear himself think enough to read. He hastily set Hedwig down and tossed the paper open on the table so he could look down at it while he held his ears. Glancing through it, he was actually thankful for Mrs. Black drowning out all but the basic gist. Naturally the reporters weren't sacrificing the chance to paint Dumbledore as incompetent and Fudge as riding in to the rescue, promising an appointment in time for classes to begin.

"You're sure you don't want your old job back?" Ron asked Prof. Lupin when the din from the foyer finally trailed off.

"It's not a matter of wanting it," he said into his teacup.

"Now, Ron, stop it," his mother scolded. "You oughtn't go teasing Remus when you know that's against the law..."

"Well, the law's only the law as much as everyone agrees to obey it," Sirius pointed out. Mrs. Weasley gave him a look as if she didn't know what he was talking about but was sure it wasn't anything good.

"That's what I don't understand!" Hermione ranted. "Professor Lupin's the kindest, safest Defense teacher we've had yet - besides just being good at it - "

Prof. Lupin turned away modestly.

"He's never cast an offensive Memory Charm at a student - "

" - Now, _you're_ the one who thought Lockhart was - " Ron interjected.

But Hermione just kept going. " - He's not an insane Death Eater escaped from Azkaban, and he doesn't have _You-Know-Who_ living in the back of his _head!_ And yet he's the one that makes the Ministry jump into a tree! Oh, Great Merlin, a werewolf! _We've got to protect our children!_ "

"It's not an idle concern," Lupin said, not meeting her eyes. "That night when you met Sirius - "

"Well we're not likely to have a night like that again," she said.

"Why not? We seem to have at least one every term," Ron pointed out. Hermione glared at him.

"It still doesn't seem fair," Harry weighed in. "There's got to be some better way to handle it than just tossing you out."

"Perhaps..." he said noncommittally. "I really ought to go on upstairs and let you all get ready for your trip..."

"You're not coming with us to the station?" Ginny asked.

"Oh, no, so many people there would recognise me..."

"Aww! You really should," she insisted. "I know a lot of people who hated it when you left. All the other Gryffindors would be happy to see you - even Michael was wondering how you were."

"I wouldn't want to alarm anyone..."

"Come on!" Harry insisted. He heard a pop and a jingle, and then Snuffles bounded up and almost knocked over Lupin's chair when he planted his paws in his lap. It put them eye-to-eye as Sirius made pleading whines with his leash in his mouth, just like a real dog begging for a walk.

"Oh, all right..." the professor gave in at last and started fastening Snuffles into his harness.

With that decided, Harry tucked into his breakfast; while the house-elves of Hogwarts' kitchen did a good job, he thought he would certainly miss Mrs. Weasley's cooking.

Once she finished the serving, setting a plate for Sirius on the floor, she stood over the table and addressed them all. "Before we go, you kids will have to remember a few things while you're away at school, things being the way they are..."

"Don't blab about the Order, we know," Ron said.

"That's true. You'll have to be careful what you say, and I'd rather you didn't go talking about any of this in letters home, either. I'm afraid that means you won't be able to write to Sirius, Harry..."

Harry's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. Sirius gave a bark that he hoped was an objection, but he looked down to find his godfather's eyes so serious that he was obviously echoing her concern.

"But I mostly meant... Well, with You-Know-Who being about, I want all of you kids safe," she said. "Hogwarts is the safest place I know of, and of course Albus will be looking after you all, but I don't want you galavanting around outside the castle where you could get hurt, all right? No mischief this year, understand? If you go breaking the rules, nobody might be able to look out for you."

Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, so that Harry didn't have the heart not to nod. Having gotten wrapped up in time with his family and the ordeal with the Ministry, it had been strangely easy for Harry to forget about the danger lurking anywhere Voldemort could stretch out his hand - but it obviously hadn't been so easy for Mrs. Weasley to forget that. Still, Harry considered the prospect of an entire term merely sitting around school, not even allowed news of the fight in letters, just being a good student and contenting himself to be kept in the dark - like they'd wanted him to do at the Dursleys - he doubted that things would happen that way even if he wanted them to, not to speak of the bit he could already feel inside his chest resisting.

He felt foolish to hold out in any measure against Mrs. Weasley's genuine - and certainly understandable - concern, but throughout breakfast she continued in that vein until her proposed rules became more and more specific and fussy, and by the time she was wondering if her children should all drop Care of Magical Creatures so as not to have to go out onto the grounds, that sliver of resitance broke through Harry's restraint and began to swell. Not writing to Sirius and risking giving him away, that he could understand, but if Mrs. Weasley didn't want him seeing Hagrid, not even for class, it was simply too much.

After the meal, they decided to go in two groups. Seemingly wanting to keep a closer eye on the boys, Mrs. Weasley sent Prof. Lupin ahead with Ginny and Hermione - Hermione of course going early as a Prefect - and she herself waited to set out for the following train with Harry, Ron, and Sirius. Feeling a little awkward, Harry asked to hold the leash as they headed out the door.

The instant they were out of the house, Sirius's tail set to wagging, and he leapt forward so energetically that he'd dragged Harry out to the sidewalk before thinking to circle back and nudge affectionately against him. Ron and his mother dashed down the path to catch up, and they set off along Grimmauld Place. After the first few minutes Sirius was more thoughtful about keeping pace, but he kept his leash almost constantly taut, exploring as far as it would allow. Harry could imagine how he must feel after being shut up in the house for weeks on end and now finally getting out on such a sunny day, with a gentle cool breath of autumn in the breeze. Despite occasionally being dragged a step this way or that or nearly tripping over the leash, he was glad to see his godfather in such high spirits and felt a little spark of resentment every time Mrs. Weasley called "heel!" Even when she didn't, Sirius would always double back tight to Harry's side, and Harry would lean over a little and pat his shoulder.

He was so content that all the way to the station he forgot - and the Weasleys could hardly have known - that passengers on the Underground weren't allowed to bring seventy kilograms of Newfoundland dog aboard with them. Harry, however, wasn't about to have his last hour with Sirius cut short, much less leave his godfather running through London alone after being reminded over breakfast that the Death Eaters were at large, and meanwhile Mrs. Weasley wasn't about to leave the boys alone on the train in order to walk Sirius home.

Harry saw nothing for it, took a determined hold on his trunk, turned about and started for King's Cross on foot. With he and Ron dragging their luggage and Ron's mother fretting the whole way about what if they missed the train and how they should have thought to just cast a Disillusioning Charm on Sirius at the station, it was a long, exhausting trek, but Harry had made up his mind and continued purposefully forward with Sirius trotting along now-more-seriously at his side. Mrs. Weasley worked herself into high agitation over the time just as Harry was convinced that they were getting close, and at last King's Cross Station came into view and they arrived with five minutes to spare. Mrs. Weasley did cast a Disillusioning Charm on Sirius here to get him past the Muggles at the station, Harry and Ron hefted their trunks on a hand-cart, and despite his fatigue Harry assumed most of the effort of pushing it through the barrier onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, with the adults just a few steps behind.

The platform was still bustling, even as the scattered crowds emptied themselves onto the train. Looking around, Harry caught sight of Fred and George's friend Lee Jordan in his dreadlocks talking to one of the Chasers on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. Neville Longbottom was easily pointed out by the stuffed vulture on his grandmother's hat as she saw him onto the train, and Harry noticed several of the other Gryffindors in a little crowd above which Prof. Lupin's graying hair was just visible.

Harry made for them, and the knot of fellow students parted with a chorus of greetings to reveal Lupin at the center and Hermione by his side.

"I thought Prefects were supposed to be on the train already," Ron huffed, slumping exhaustedly over the hand-cart as it came to rest.

"Well, Ginny saw... saw some friends and took off, and I..." Her explanation fizzled out even as Mrs. Weasley left them and went searching through the crowd. Most likely Hermione hadn't wanted to leave Prof. Lupin, but she couldn't just say that.

"Yeah, who she went off and left me for, I really don't know," said Ginny's boyfriend, Michael Corner. Harry thought his tone disagreeably cocky.

"Did you have any trouble getting here?" Lupin asked.

"Um, well, they don't let dogs on the underground, so we had to..." Harry trailed off as the rest of the crowd raised their heads to look past him, and he felt a chill at his back. He turned around to find himself almost face-to-face with a slim golden-haired woman in a rich green robe - Narcissa Malfoy, with her husband Lucius just behind her. Harry glanced furtively around for Draco, but didn't see him; he must have already been on the train.

Narcissa gave no sign that she even saw Harry and instead stared coldly past him at Prof. Lupin. Harry thought he heard a little growl in Sirius's throat.

"Mrs. Malfoy," Lupin greeted mildly. "My congratulations on Draco being named a Prefect."

 _Draco's a Prefect?_ Harry groaned internally.

"...I remember having him in my class; he's a very bright -"

"What are you doing here?" Narcissa asked him, her face unmoved.

"Only visiting with some of my former students."

"I asked him to come," Hermione added, facing up to Mrs. Malfoy with surprising courage.

Narcissa ignored her; her face screwed up even tighter. "I would have thought it had been made quite clear to you..."

The growl in Sirius's throat was building; Harry nervously tautened the leash and gripped it tighter.

"...We do not want our children exposed to a _disease-bearing anim_ -"

Before she could finish the insult, Sirius threw himself toward her, jerking his leash out of Harry's hand and barking viciously. Narcissa jumped back. "Wait, no-!" Harry cried.

"Snuffles, no," Lupin said firmly but calmly. "Come here." Sirius stopped barking and sauntered back to his friend, who picked up his leash and rubbed his shoulder. "Good boy," Remus said, although Sirius was still looking at the Malfoys with the most loathing Harry had ever seen on a dog's face.

Frightened by the outburst, Crookshanks was now crying from his crate and Hedwig flapped nervously. Harry heard several more cats meowling, and every owl cage he could see in the scattered crowd jostled - except Pigwidgeon's; he had been fluttering around inside it but now huddled quiet and quivering in a corner.

"What's going on here!" boomed a gravelly voice. Prof. Moody came clunking over to them on his wooden leg, with Tonks beside him.

 _Where did they come from?_ Harry wondered.

"Onto the train now! Off with you all!" Moody insisted, shooing the students away.

As the crowd broke up, the Malfoys moved on as well, but Narcissa gave a parting shot over her shoulder. "Don't be surprised if you hear from the Ministry about this."

"Careful of Dementors, Potter," her husband added before turning to follow her. "I don't think that guard dog of yours would be much good against them."

Harry felt a lump in his throat as Lucius Malfoy showed him a wicked smile and turned to walk away.

"I had a great summer! I'll miss you," Hermione was saying. "Take care of yourself." She gave Prof. Lupin a hug, to his obvious surprise, then hugged Sirius around the neck. "And you too! Bye!" She set off toward the train.

Ron had started after her with he and Harry's luggage, but Moody caught Harry's arm and held him back for a moment. "Good job doubling back, Harry. Throw 'em off the track, that's the way," he whispered in his ear before letting him go. Somehow he and Tonks must have been watching over their trip to the station - that must have been his urgent business this morning.

"Have a good year, Harry," Tonks beamed, then shouted at the side of the train. " _Have a good year, everybody!_ " A scattering of voices called back to her, a few even calling her name.

"Take care, Harry," Lupin told him.

"I will," he said. He leaned over and hugged Sirius, cheek against his furry forehead. "You take care, too, all right?" he whispered into Sirius's ear, and got a soft bark in reply.

Harry had just started to follow Ron to the train when he heard Mrs. Weasley's voice shouting further up. "GEORGE FREDERICK AND FREDERICK GEORGE WEASLEY!" The twins were leaning out the window of their compartment as she yelled up at them from the platform. "WHAT HAVE YOU TWO BEEN DOING YOUR FATHER AND I HAVE BEEN WORRYING OURSELVES SICK - "

"We love you too, Mum! We'll be home for Christmas!" they shouted with broad smiles, waving their wands out the window and showering her with conjured daisies to her apparent confusion.

Ginny poked her head out between them. "Take care of Dad for us!"

Harry chuckled at the sight. He and Ron were on the edge of the last knot of students boarding and waited for others to clear the doorway ahead of them. Harry turned around for one last bittersweet look back at Sirius and the others from the Order, but no sooner had he picked them out than Sirius again yanked his leash taut and galloped toward him, dragging Lupin behind at a run. With a final bound, he planted his paws on Harry's shoulders and knocked him off balance. Harry fell to a seat and landed amid a flurry of snuffly canine kisses. "I love you too, Snuffles," he said with an awkward laugh, dodging around the wet, tickly tongue that attacked his face.

"Terribly sorry!" Lupin said, smiling despite himself. "You know he's just excited to be out today."

"Yeah, I know." Harry hugged Sirius's neck again as he got up. Following right behind Ron, he was the last one onto the train, and Sirius stood there whimpering as he climbed the stairs, then finally pawed in the air for a wave goodbye as Lupin gave a him one last wish for a good term. Almost as soon as the door slid shut behind Harry, the whistle blew and the Hogwarts Express started moving. Through the window and his smeary glasses, he just glimsed Sirius and Lupin and Mrs. Weasley regrouping with the others; for all the rows they'd had, Harry could swear his friend's mother and his godfather were both walking now with the same dejected shuffle. Nothing for it, he told himself, it was just something that happened every year - although he realised it had never quite happened for him before.

Harry tugged a tissue from his pocket and tried to wipe the dog slobber off his face and glasses, and as the train pulled out of the station, Ron led the way up to where they'd seen Ginny and the Twins.

"Hey Ron, hey Harry!" Fred and George greeted. "Have a good rest-of-holiday?"

"Pretty good, yeah," Harry said, polishing his glasses with the tail of his shirt and putting them back on to bring the Weasleys into focus.

"Only one seat left?" Ron queried as a Ravenclaw girl edged past them.

"No, sorry, Lee's sitting with us," Ginny said. "It's really exciting, though - he's starting a school newspaper this year!"

"School newspaper?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, finally!" Fred said. "He's been bugging McGonagall and Dumbledore about starting one up ever since fourth year, and this summer they sent an owl and finally gave him the go-ahead!"

"It's gonna be all written by students," George continued. "Each house'll have its own page, too, and we talked him into running some ads for us."

"Where did he get to, anyway?" Ginny asked.

"Last I saw him he was hunting down Dean to see if he'd do some cartoons and pictures..."

"We talked about it and came up with the name 'The Hogwarts X-Press,' kind of a joke with the train, see?" Fred said, tracing an "X" and a dash in the air with his finger to show the spelling. "...You don't look too excited."

"No, no, it sounds great," Harry said. After this past year's experience with the Daily Prophet, however, he had trouble getting too excited about any newspaper.

"Ah, Potter! There you are!"

Harry grimaced at the familiar drawling voice in the corridor, but he wasn't about to back down. He turned to face Draco Malfoy and his ever-present cronies Crabbe and Goyle. Draco had his father's pale blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and superior smirk, but Harry now struggled not to notice how much his face looked like his mother's - how much he looked like a Black. He also did his best to ignore the Prefect badge shining on Draco's chest.

"Not in your robes yet, I see," Draco said. "Waiting to put your badge on?"

"I haven't got one," Harry said flatly.

"We don't need a bit of metal to tack onto our robes before we can whip you!" Ron added.

Draco grinned and ignored him. "Oh, I'd already seen one on another of your lot, but I just couldn't believe it. Gryffindor's best and brightest, _not_ the famous Harry Potter...?"

"So maybe somebody gets higher marks than me. That's never kept me from getting the Snitch before you do," Harry said.

Draco laughed unexpectedly hard. "Higher marks! That's right, Potter, they must have tapped someone with higher marks than you!"

His thugs laughed as well. "Especially in Herbology, right?" Goyle said.

Draco waved him off. "Especially in _Potions_ ," he corrected, and turned to go, still laughing.

Ron grumbled coarsely. Harry was puzzled by that last jab, but hastily pushed it aside.

"Hey wait up!" someone called down the corridor. It was Lee Jordan; he conjured a white flag on his wand and waved it jovially. "Draco, wait up!"

Harry wondered what he could possibly want as Draco doubled back past their compartment.

"Can I help you?" he drawled sarcastically.

"Yeah. I'm starting up a school newspaper, thought you'd be the man to talk to about getting a Slytherin house page together."

Harry braced himself for a regular "Potter is a Twerp" feature as he and Ron set off to find a seat while Malfoy was distracted.

Ginny poked her head out after them and shouted to Lee. "Lee, I wanna be the plucky reporter! Can I be your plucky reporter?"

"Sure!" he shouted back.

"Hooray!"

"Excuse us. Excuse us please..."

As Harry looked back, two Ravenclaw girls were trying to get past Lee, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were blocking the corridor. One of the girls was the Ravenclaw Quidditch Seeker, Cho Chang. Without thinking, Harry left his own trunk standing on its casters and dashed back to stretch an arm across Malfoy's thugs and crowd them to the side.

"Hey! Hands off, Potter!"

"Don't get your half-blood dirt on me!"

But Harry paid no attention to Crabbe and Goyle. As Cho slipped past him with her trunk - "Sorry, sorry..." - the ends of her silky black hair just brushed his arm, and he was glad to have saved them from contact with the Slytherin lackeys.

"Watch it, Potter!" Draco snapped. "The badge does mean something, you know. I might have to take this up with the staff when we arrive."

"Well, let a girl through, you - " Harry was in mid-retort when he realised he couldn't say anything very nasty in front of Cho. " - You uncivil person!"

Draco only blinked at him for a moment before turning again to snigger into his hand. He called after as Harry caught up with Ron and took his luggage again. "Just don't forget and take a step out of line, Potter! I'll be _dogging you_ all the way!"

Crabbe and Goyle laughed as if it had been a joke, and Harry felt that lump in his throat again. ' _Dogging'...?_

"Thanks," said Cho's friend, a taller girl with a suntan, wheat-blonde curls, and no luggage. "I had found a compartment a little further up."

"You're doing better than us, then," Ron said. "What we get for getting on last..."

"The one we found is empty, if you'd want to sit with Marietta and me," Cho offered. Even as she replied to Ron, she was looking at Harry.

"Uh... Yeah, sure," he said.

The four of them followed the corridor up to a compartment near the front of the train where Marietta had put her trunk across the doorway to reserve it. Already they could see the witch with the tea trolley coming down the aisle, and they had barely stowed their luggage and sat down - with Harry facing Ron from beside Cho - before she knocked at their door. "Anything off the cart, dears?" the witch asked, smiling at them.

"Everybody, just get what you want; my treat," Harry announced impulsively.

Marietta wanted only a glass of pumpkin juice and a licorice wand. Ron got two pumpkin pasties; Harry belatedly realised that his friend might be uncomfortable asking for much on someone else's money, so he padded his own order up a bit just in case. Cho asked for cauldron cakes and chocolate frogs - eight of each, plus pumpkin juice! Ron stared at her in a way that made Harry's face pinch.

As the snacks were handed out, Marietta sucked her juice through a straw, and Cho's mouth pursed up sweetly and gracefully as she sucked on a leg of her first Chocolate Frog. Harry watched her and was just starting to wonder why the food-cart witch didn't move on when Ron leaned toward him. "Um, Harry, mate...?"

"Hm?" He looked up. The witch smiled at him expectantly.

"Your treat, you said...?" Ron whispered.

" _Oh!_ " As Harry dug out his money, he felt ready to collapse from embarassment. Fumbling several coins and having to pick them up off the floor didn't help matters - and in front of Cho! As the door finally closed behind the snack trolley, he felt as hot as if there were a raging fire right there in the compartment, and he wished that he could just slide under the seat and curl up and hide there...

Nervously he took a Cauldron Cake on the seat beside him - just as Cho reached for the same one. Harry barely had time to feel the pang of another mistake before Cho's dainty knuckles brushed against his -

It was as if an electric spark jumped from her to him and lit his whole body with with a warm peach glow. Suddenly he knew as he felt his fringe against his forehead and his glasses on his nose just how they looked, framing his scar, magnifying his green eyes... He knew that looking at them felt the same as he himself felt looking at Cho's glossy hair, her mouth kissing the edge of the cake...

The way he felt about Cho, that delicious, delicate, terrifying surge of energy... That moment of contact had told him in a flash that it was the same thing she felt when she looked at him.

"Oy, Harry, trade one of my pasties for a Cauldron Cake?" Ron asked him. "...Harry?"

Harry couldn't take his eyes off Cho's face as she sipped her pumpkin juice with lightly closed eyes.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Eleven: Fire or Flood or War or Strife**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Ten_

Title for next time not as bad as it sounds, it's simply a line from the upcoming Sorting Hat song (so stay tuned for its annual performance).

This chapter came out long; I can't accuse myself of getting nothing done this time, but the eponymous element ended up as just kind of a passing mention. Oh, well. I had stuff left over that I wanted to do at the Black House and I just hope it doesn't seem forced (although late in the story how Sirius made it through Azkaban is to be revisited), and somehow I couldn't bring myself to write "and then they went to the station" and just get stuff the hell done with... -;;

If you're paying attention, you know who the Gryffindor Boy prefect is; Harry will remain in denial until next chapter, tho. On the other hand, I think actually just calling Draco on being rude throws him off balance more than being cursed at.

I fear I'm playing "popular girl" stereotypes (um, I prefer to think of them as "archetypes", yeah...) with Cho and Marietta. Marietta is more the "Oh no, I shouldn't; I just had half a cling peach yesterday" type, where Cho is more the Sailor Moon type who can eat anything and not gain weight (it makes some sense for the athlete to have that going I think). Also, because Harry's feelings for Cho basically do come down to physical attraction (I think that's pretty clear from books 3 and 4; he doesn't know her that well and nonetheless has a crush), I tried for his point-of-view prose to show a very physical appreciation of her, although I don't want to push it to the point of sexual overtones (there's a reason she didn't eat that frog head-first; I just couldn't bring myself to write that). I hope it works and that I'm not going too fast, but on that second point, it'll just take time to gain the proper perspective...

Silly perhaps, but I love Moody's "Good job doubling back" line. It seemed like a nice Moody moment, and also, it's a little like what Lupin was saying last time about how Harry handled the Dementor attack... In this you can see perhaps why I was so disgusted with how book 5 went, but I wanted to play up a theme that I think I was promised in book 1, that love is the greatest power. In that vein, Moody's aside is a little moment to show that acting out of love and kindness leads you to do the right thing even if it looks stupid at the time. Not always true IRL (though I suspect more often than not), but I liked it so much better when that was the kind of story-world we were dealing with...

  



	11. Fire or Flood or War or Strife

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Eleven  
 _Fire or Flood or War or Strife_**

Harry feared for a moment that he had committed another faux pas when he unthinkingly asked Cho if she was from a wizard home, but she seemed quite happy to answer that she was. Her father, Eric Chang, was from a family of Chinese wizards who had moved to England almost two centuries before, and he had named Cho after his favorite grandmother. Her mother, Yuzuki Ishikawa-Chang, was a Muggle-born graduate of the largest magic school in Japan. It turned out Cho had a Pureblood wizard father and a Muggle-born witch mother-"Just like me," he said, although thankfully her parents were both still alive.

For most of the journey, Harry found he didn't even have to say a thing; he could just sit watching Cho eat for hours, and she didn't seem to mind if he did. Despite her graceful table manners-she certainly didn't wolf anything-by the end of the trip her huge order of chocolates and cakes had indeed disappeared. She gave Ron her Chocolate Frog Cards, saying she didn't collect them herself, and Harry thought that perfectly sweet of her, especially when he got back from putting on his school robes and Ron excitedly showed him a card neither of them had seen before-a Lyra LaNoire. The woman pictured reading aloud from a book as she stood in front of a Wizard Wireless banner indeed bore a strong resemblance to the photographs of a younger Sirius.

 _Sirius..._ At the station, Lucius Malfoy had teased Harry that "that guard dog of yours" couldn't stand up to Dementors. Draco had taunted, "I'll be _dogging you_ "... The lump swelled in his throat again, but then Cho asked "Is anything wrong, Harry?" When he looked over and caught her shining dark eyes, everything else seemed to fall aside. He got his necktie into a hopeless tangle, but Cho leaned over, tied it for him, and smoothed it down against his chest.

When the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station, Ron had to remind Harry not to forget Hedwig and his luggage. He floated down onto the platform like a happy red balloon, and his huge trunk felt feather-light as he loaded it onto one of the coaches bound for the castle. He only noted with detached bemusement that large, black, glistening horses stood hitched before each coach where nothing had been in the years before.

As they rode to the castle, Harry made a mental note not to forget his things this time-only to have forgotten that he was supposed to leave them on the carriage to be taken up to the dorm. Ron again got him back on course and they filed past the black horses who, Harry now saw, had scaly skin and batlike wings.

Once they had entered the castle and arrived in the great hall, Harry and Ron settled in at the Gryffindor table, where they met back up with Hermione and Ginny. Harry turned his head toward the Ravenclaw table, trying for a glimpse of Cho, but he hadn't caught sight of her before the hall fell silent at the clacking of a pair of high-heeled shoes and a broad shuffling sound following behind it.

Prof. Minerva McGonagall-the Transfiguration teacher, Head of Gryffindor House, and Deputy Headmistress-led a line of first-years across the front of the Great Hall, then ceremoniously placed a four-legged stool just in front of the head table. Upon the stool sat the ancient, shabby-looking Hogwarts Sorting Hat, and everyone in the hall watched it and waited in reverent silence.

Among the hat's many tears, one large one near the brim remained unpatched, and this gap opened wide as a mouth for the hat, as it did every year, to sing.

 _At Hogwarts are Four Houses;  
In which one will you go?  
You'll wear its pride your whole life long,  
And so you're keen to know!  
But first do let me have my say,  
Now listen to my song,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,  
Who knows where you belong!_

 _Each House once had its Founder  
-Oh, their faces I remember!-  
But each knew none should learn alone;  
They built this school together,  
And each one had a special kind  
Of student they thought best  
And gathered in their namesake house,  
Distinct among the rest._

 _Thus Slyth'rin vowed, "I'll teach those  
"With ambition for the prize!"  
Said Ravenclaw, "My students  
"Will have minds both keen and wise."  
"My pupils shall be brave and bold!"  
Did Gryffindor proclaim,  
And Hufflepuff: "The patient,  
"Just, and true will bear my name."_

 _But the Houses were not separate, no!  
'Twas all four made the school,  
Where even different rivals'  
Common good would be the rule,  
And all would strive to learn the truth,  
Unswayed by friend or stranger,  
In fire or flood or war or strife,  
Resisting lies and danger._

 _Just think how dull would Hogwarts be  
If we were all the same!  
Just think how grand the many gifts  
And principles we claim!  
Just think how special is this school,  
How loved by wizards all!  
For Four as One stand strong and true  
Though others rise and fall._

 _And now you come to take your place-  
A great one it will be!  
The time has come to Sort you all,  
So put your trust in me!_

The great hall erupted in thunderous applause, and Harry clapped as loudly as anyone.

"I thought this one was very good, didn't you?" Hermione said.

Harry glanced across the head table. Headmaster Dumbledore stood at center giving the hat a one-man standing ovation, and indeed hands were clapping all across the table. Even sour-faced Prof. Snape managed to look slightly less annoyed than usual and applaud. All of that pulled Harry's attention straight to the one person who didn't join in; one witch seated at the head table didn't clap but only scribbled on a clipboard, rustling the dirty-gold curls that shot out from behind the alice band in her hair.

Harry choked. " _It's her!_ " he hissed to his friends.

"Who's which?" Ron asked, but the next moment the Great Hall hushed again as Professor McGonagall read from a scroll and instructed the first years to don the Sorting Hat when she called out their name and let it announce their house. Even her stern clear voice couldn't cut through Harry's shock. That witch at the head table was wearing a different robe, but again pink with ruffles. She had the same wide mouth with the same red drawn-on cherry...

"Abercrombie, Euan!" McGonnagall announced.

"Who's 'her,' Harry, what's going on?" Ginny asked.

" _GRYFFINDOR!_ " the Sorting Hat called.

Harry and his friends took a moment to clap and cheer for Euan as his blank tie and hatkerchief magically turned red-and-gold and he ran over to their table.

"The new teacher, the one between Flitwick and Hooch," Harry pointed out. "She was at my hearing! She was... _She was the pink toad woman!_ "

"The one with the werewolf question?" Hermione asked.

"That one, right!"

"But what would she be doing...?" Ron's question ground to a halt. Harry suspected they were all realising at the same time: only one teaching position was open, and the paper had said that Fudge was going to appoint a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor...

Several more students were Sorted in the dread-filled pause.

"Well surely... Surely if she got appointed she must be qualified for it..." Hermione suggested in a tone of pitiful desperation.

"Sure, Fudge must think she's 'qualified'..." Ron grumped.

"Lahiri, Aiman!" McGonagall read out.

" _GRYFFINDOR!_ " came the speedy response.

Joining in the applause perked Harry up a little.

"Maybe she's not a teacher at all," Ginny said hopefully. "Maybe she's just here as an inspector or something, and they haven't got the new teacher yet."

"I hope you're right," Harry said.

"Let's just wait for Dumbledore to announce her..." Hermione said.

But Ginny was less patient. "Maybe Nick knows." She leaned over to Lavender Brown and sent a whisper relaying down the table to the House Ghost, "Nearly-Headless" Nick. As the Sorting continued, Harry watched it travel down the Gryffindor table to compete with Euan Abercrombie obviously questioning the pearly translucent cavalier about his nickname.

"Price, Legantine!"

Ginny hopped up in her seat and waved at the girl who was putting the Sorting Hat on, even though it presently called out " _SLYTHERIN!_ " She started to sit, but bounced back up and waved again at "Randall, Kelley!" who was Sorted as " _RAVENCLAW!_ "

"Do you know them?" Ron asked her.

"I talked to them on the train," she said.

Only after the demonstration that Nick grudgingly gave every year-tilting his head off his neck to show it attached by only a bit of skin-did the whisper about the new face at the head table start back toward them. It had only gotten as far as Fred and George when Prof. McGonagall called out "Zeller, Rose!"

" _HUFFLEPUFF!_ " the hat declared.

" _He says she just got here today!_ " Fred shouted down to Harry's group amid the Hufflepuffs' applause. Nick shook his head, grasping the bridge of his nose to keep it from wobbling.

As the applause died away, Dumbledore again stood at the center of the head table. He held a scroll in his hand. "Welcome, all of you, to a new year at Hogwarts," he said. It seemed he didn't even have to raise his voice for it to fill the huge room. "Unlike in previous years, I thought perhaps I would make the start of term announcements before the feast is served." With a flick of his little finger, he released part of his hold on the scroll; the trailing end of it fell past the surface of the head table, and the small _tack!_ as it hit the floor echoed through the Great Hall, which had gone silent in befuddled horror.

Ron groaned and half-collapsed onto the table-Harry wasn't at all sure now that Ron had eaten more than one cauldron cake and one pumpkin pasty since that morning.

"...And then I came to my senses!" the Headmaster exulted, throwing the scroll aside in a flourish of parchment. " _Bon Appétit!_ "

Amid laughs and cheers, the sumptuous start-of-term feast-prepared by the Hogwarts house-elves-magically appeared on the tables, and the Great Hall filled with a rumbling of hands reaching for dishes and voices getting to know new faces or catching up with old friends. Harry noticed the pink witch at the head table fetching the scroll from the floor, rewinding it, and seemingly attempting to discuss it over Dumbledore's shoulder with limited success.

Ron lost no time tucking into some beef roast and potatoes. Between the snacks on the train and apprehension about the new staff member, Harry's appetite might have suffered, but the delicious smells of the feast overcame that easily enough.

"Got a bit preachy this time didn't it? The hat I mean," Ron said, when his plate at last was mostly finished.

"I thought it was a great message, that we should all stand together," Hermione argued. "All the infighting between houses is such a waste..."

"I'm just waiting for Malfoy to go first, is all I'm saying."

"He might just be waiting for you, ever think of that?"

"Hermione, this _is_ Draco we're talking about," Harry put in.

"You never know. Stranger things have happened," she maintained. "It does seem kind of mixed-up, though, that the Hat says that and then all the inter-house competitions will start right up. Maybe the House Cup is kind of a silly idea. Maybe we shouldn't all be playing Quidditch against each other."

"Now hold up right there!" Ron blurted, spraying the last of his potatoes. "We already missed Quidditch _last_ year! Don't you go taking it away again; you'll have a riot on your hands!"

"I can't wait to get back out on the pitch!" Harry agreed. As Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, he'd thought cancelling Quidditch in favor of the Triwizard Tournament the previous year to be a singularly bad trade-even before Voldemort had gotten involved.

"I'm thinking of trying out, too," Ginny said. "-And if they took away the house points system, then what would they do for discipline? I hope not take advice from Filch!"

"That's a good point," Hermione admitted. Argus Filch, the Hogwarts custodian, always loved to catch rulebreakers, together with his snooping cat Mrs. Norris. He had never forgiven the administration banning him from using shackles and medieval torture devices on his victims.

By this time they were quite pleasantly full, and as if to save Hermione from her friends' ganging up, the feast blinked away to be replaced by an abundance of rich desserts. Harry caught sight of some butterbeer ice cream floats, and after finishing one of them and a thick slab of chocolate cake, he was utterly stuffed.

"If I may have your attention please," Headmaster Dumbledore announced from the head table, standing again. "This term there are a number of announcements to make. Firstly I would like to welcome all our new students, and also a new member of our staff, whom the Ministry of Magic has kindly sent to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Dolores Umbridge!"

Indeed, the fat witch in pink stood up as she was announced; Harry's heart sank, but he clapped his hands awkwardly a few times for the sake of politeness.

This time it was Hermione who was thunderstruck. "Umbridge!" she cried under her breath, totally forgetting to join the applause. "Did he say _Dolores Umbridge?_ "

"Yeah, I think so," Harry said.

"I must also announce more soberly," Dumbledore continued before Hermione could explain her reaction, "that our esteemed gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures instructor, Rubeus Hagrid, is currently on personal leave, and we hope for his return later in the term."

Harry thought he heard a loud whisper from the Slytherin table-"...Using the word 'hope' very loosely..."-followed by a round of surreptitious chuckles.

"Once again Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank has kindly agreed to fill in until that time."

Hagrid was still gone? That was almost as much a disappointment to Harry as the Defense professor. Over the Summer, Hagrid had gone with Madame Maxime of Beauxbatons to try to form an alliance with the giants, since they were each half giant themselves. Was this long an absence a good sign or a bad one? At any rate he supposed it could be covered for; surely it would be understandable if Hagrid just wanted a vacation after the reporter Rita Skeeter had so rudely revealed his giant heritage to the whole world last term...

"I will now turn over the floor to Professor Umbridge, who has a few short announcements of her own," Dumbledore said at last, and with a gesture toward her, he sat down.

Umbridge stood up, cleared her throat-" _hem-hem!_ "-and produced the scroll Dumbledore had tossed aside earlier. "Having been appointed as Senior Field Minister for Education and also as Hogwarts Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, I have here several statements that I would like to read on behalf of the Ministry of Magic." She unrolled about a foot of the scroll, turning each end smartly as she read to take up the slack, but no one had forgotten seeing how long it was as she began. "Be it known henceforth to all students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, their parents, guardians, and other concerned persons, that neither the Ministry of Magic under Cornelius Fudge nor the Educational Field offices thereof headed by Dolores Umbridge, had any prior knowledge or bear any responsibility regarding any statements made . . ."

Harry's eyelids sagged before the end of even one tortuous sentence. Between her tuneless voice droning on and his own packed stomach, he foggishly understood the gist: the Ministry was disavowing everything Dumbledore had said at the end of last term, everything the students had ever been taught in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and anything to do with the school's current administration and staff whatever. Scattered clattering and tinkling noises about the hall indicated several students revisiting dessert as she went on to expound on the "challenges" of teaching Defense at the current time and the Ministry's response thereto, and although Prof. Umbridge spoke on the subject for at least twenty minutes and went into exacting detail, Harry ended with absolutely no idea what she intended to teach and not a single notion of what he would encounter when he stepped into her classroom.

At last Umbridge put the scroll away, and the Great Hall roused itself to a perfunctory round of applause.

"Well, there you have it," Dumbledore announced; he was the only person in the room still wearing an energetic smile. "I don't suppose there's anything that I can add to such wonderful thoroughness, and I can only send you all off to your dorms with wishes for a good year!"

"So Hermione, why'd her name set _you_ off?" Ginny asked amid the dull roar of students rising from their seats.

"Dolores Umbridge gets mentioned in the Daily Prophet all the time!" Hermione said. "Back in the gritty politics pages, I could see where you might miss it, but-"

She stopped as a diffident voice called out nearby. "First Years- I mean, Gryffindor First Years, this way... I think...?"

"I have to go; I'll tell you later!" Hermione said, and leapt up to skirt around the table.

She joined the crowd of first years who gathered around an unconfident, round-faced figure; Harry saw the other Gryffindor Prefect badge glitter in the light of the floating candles, and despite himself he stared slack-jawed.

"That's right," Hermione announced brightly. "Gryffindor First Years, gather right here and follow me and Neville."

Ron tore himself away from staring over his shoulder. _"Neville?"_ he mouthed.

"I... I suppose," Harry managed.

"Look, though, isn't it cute?" Ginny said.

The prefects had set off with the First Years and were now out of earshot. In a detached sort of way, Harry admitted it did look cute with Hermione and Neville leading the smaller students like a pair of mother ducks. Neville occasionally glanced behind him, and Harry suspected that only Hermione's hand on his shoulder was keeping him from slipping down the ranks and just following her lead with the First Years. Neville wasn't always the best at finding Gryffindor Tower anyway.

 _How could they pick him instead of-?_ Harry caught himself and shut down the thought.

But he wasn't alone with it. "I can't believe it!" Ron whispered as they got up. " _How could we lose to Neville?_ "

* * *

  
Monday began classes as only a Monday could: Potions first thing, then Care of Magical Creatures, both with Slytherin. Prof. Snape at least didn't take any points from Gryffindor, as they didn't yet have any, but he did not waste the chance to give his favored Slytherins a headstart as he lectured about the project for their double-length lab later in the week: Catalytical Potion, crucial in the preparation and measuring of ingredients for many advanced concoctions. He made it quite clear to the students that failure in this first lesson would hobble them for the rest of the term if not the rest of their careers. Harry wasn't looking forward to it, but Neville looked downright wretched, as if his Prefect badge pinning him up was the only thing keeping him from wilting in despair.

Prof. Grubbly-Plank then held a lecture on the lawn-her standard start-of-term lecture, she said-regarding basic safety principles to observe when interacting with magical creatures, and she demonstrated them by play-acting with her own grizzled and unshakeable border collie. Looking forward to Hagrid's return despite his love of particularly dangerous animals, Harry paid close attention to this lesson, although he occasionally did look over toward Hagrid's hut standing dark and silent.

On the way back to the castle, Harry, Ron, and Hermione fell into step together. "So what was the trouble with the new teacher?" Ron asked Hermione. "Why'd her name set you off?"

"Because I've seen it in the Daily Prophet so much," Hermione said. "It seems like every time they're reporting on some stupid new law, she's involved. After Third Year all the new werewolf regulations were her pet project."

"So she was the one who banned Professor Lupin from the school?" Harry questioned.

Hermione nodded.

"I like her already," Draco Malfoy called as he passed near them. Pansy Parkinson giggled at his elbow.

"You would, snow princess!" Ron snapped.

"Careful insulting a Prefect, Weasley!" Malfoy exulted. "I'll ignore it this time."

"'Snow princess'?" Harry questioned.

"Oh, it means a prat like him, somebody who's got so much 'Pure Blood' they're practically not human."

"So it's like calling someone a 'mudblood,' just going the other way," Hermione declared sternly.

"It's not the same at all!" Ron insisted. "I'd never call anyone a- Besides, you only use 'snow princess' if they're being berks about it."

"It's an insult for people _you_ don't like instead of people _they_ don't like, and that makes it okay, does it?" she persisted as they entered the castle.

"That badge is going to your head!"

"Let's check the class schedule!" Harry broke in with the best thing he could think of. "We can at least see when we've got Umbridge so we can brace ourselves..."

The schedule was posted on a wall in the Great Hall, where students were starting to gather as classes let out for lunch, although Harry and his friends still had a few minutes to go and change out of the heavier work robes they were wearing for Potions and Creatures. They located Defense Against the Dark Arts in a double session Friday afternoons following free periods in the morning-which gave them the entire week to imagine what they might come up against in Umbridge's class.

"Hi, Harry!"

He looked around. Cho was there at the Ravenclaw table along with Marietta and a knot of other friends. She waved at Harry and he waved back. He watched as she chatted with her friends and laughed-a light, musical, bird-song sort of laugh. At length she noticed him still looking at her and waved again; again he waved back.

"Um, Harry?"

"Hm?" He turned back to his friends to find that they'd started to leave without his noticing.

"Are you going to come change or not?" Ron asked.

"Oh, right!" He hurried after them, but as they walked through the familiar twists and turns of Hogwarts' stone hallways and neared the portrait of the Fat Lady who guarded the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, he found that the new password had escaped him.

Luckily, Hermione had taken the point anyway. "Fire or Flood or War or Strife," she said, and the painting swung open.

* * *

  
As the first week of class progressed, Harry kept wondering to himself why, oh, why was Ravenclaw the only other house that Gryffindor didn't have a class with. In two subjects they were paired with Slytherin, in Herbology with Hufflepuff, but nothing at all with Ravenclaw! It wasn't until sometime Wednesday afternoon that he remembered: Cho was a year ahead of him and his friends anyway.

McGonagall of course gave Transfiguration homework right away. Prof. Flitwick in Charms and Prof. Sprout in Herbology said in their initial lectures that OWLs preparation was a major goal in their classes this year-but especially in Charms, there was still the grade five material to cover, so exam preparation meant that much more work for the students. Harry and his friends came out of Flitwick's class with daily review assignments as well as their usual reading and practice.

Professor Snape, on the other hand, arched one black eyebrow above his hooked nose when Parvati Patil brought up the OWLs during his class Thursday afternoon. "The sole aim of my class," he said in his icy drawl, "is to make you into competent Potioners - despite overwhelming odds in some cases." The Slytherins all chuckled as he sneered over a ladleful of Neville's Catalytical Potion, which had developed glowing pink lumps. "I can only hope for your sakes that that is what the Ministry's examiners intend to measure."

Fifth Year was certainly going to be the hardest yet, Harry thought as he tried to balance his homework assignments and still keep the weekend free for Quidditch practice. When he first noticed Ginny huddled in near Hermione's study spot in the common room, scribbling madly on parchments to all hours of the night, he thought perhaps the increase in workload was a generalised change sweeping the school, but over the next few days he noticed what she was really doing: she sped through her homework every evening, then pushed it aside, took out her "plucky reporter" notes, and set about writing for Lee's paper.

Meanwhile, Professor Umbridge's Defense Against the Dark Arts class became more and more of a mystery. Not even those who had attended seemed to know anything about it. Her classroom was near the lecture hall where Harry sat through History of Magic early in the week with Prof. Binns, a teacher who had died many years ago without noticing and continued classes as a ghost, and whom all the students found terribly boring even for a dead person. When the class time was up, Harry and his friends left Binns still droning on as usual, at the same time that the younger Hufflepuffs dismissed by Umbridge filed out into the hallway. They found Ginny waiting there with her notebook, and she gave Harry and her brother a smile and a wave before asking any of the Hufflepuffs she could catch about Umbridge's class. None of them responded with enough energy to be audible at Harry's distance, and as the younger students mixed with the crowd of fifth-years leaving History, they all seemed to have the same vaguely befuddled look on their faces.

Later that day, when Harry and Ron returned from an afternoon of Divination in the heavily perfumed haze of Prof. Trelawney's incense smoke filled tower, they found Fred and George just getting back from classes as well. Being seventh years, the twins had just had an all-day dose of Defense with Prof. Umbridge. "That's a year of Tuesdays we'll never be getting back," was all they had to say about the experience.

Harry scarcely even wanted to peek inside the textbook for a foretaste. He thought about doing it Wednesday afternoon when he and Ron had free periods and Hermione was off at Double Runes, then again Friday Morning when there were no classes to distract him from the clock ticking on toward lunch with Defense to come directly after. Instead he busied himself with his Transfiguration homework.

Lunch at last came and went, and the fifth year Gryffindors filed down to Prof. Umbridge's classroom. Harry tried to put all his apprehensions out of mind; what could Umbridge do to him that would be worse than Lockhart's dangerous incompetence, two bona-fide servants of Lord Voldemort who had taught the subject, and of course four years of Snape? Hermione, however, wore a look of grim determination that didn't help put him at ease.

As they entered, the classroom looked ordinary - perhaps even too ordinary. The desks were lined up in meticulous rows, their chairs all neatly pushed in. The chalkboard was utterly clean and black except for guidelines traced onto it and letters written so neatly they almost seemed printed:

 _Defense Against the Dark Arts  
Professor Dolores Umbridge  
Senior Field Minister for Education_

 _A return to basic princples.  
Students will:  
Learn fundamental defensive theory  
Learn to identify situations where defensive magic may legally be used  
Learn techniques to resolve situations without the use of defensive magic  
Learn the proper Ministry offices to contact in case of danger  
Participate in guided practice of principles discussed_

 _Today's lesson: Read Slinkhard pgs. 5-12. Discuss._

Harry took a seat and opened the textbook at last. The indicated section was the introduction: "A New Framework for Defensive Magical Theory." Parvati and Dean both began reading right away, but Harry waited, along with Ron, Seamus, and - to his surprise - Hermione.

Soon Dolores Umbridge sauntered into the room from her side office, dressed in a pink pants-suit with a long brown crocheted vest; it was as if someone's elderly aunt had attempted professional attire without ever having seen a businessperson in the flesh. Her powdered-and-painted face looked even more ridiculously theatrical up close; Harry thought he heard Seamus squelch a snigger.

" _Hem-hem._ " Umbridge pointedly ignored the sound and picked up her clipboard. "I trust we have all seen the assignment on the chalkboard. For future lessons, our readings will be assigned in advance, not to worry. However, for the start of today's class, let us please read the Introduction quietly to ourselves."

Parvati raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss...?"

"Parvati Patil." She pointed at the chalkboard. "What does it mean about 'guided practice'?"

"Miss Patil, I believe the phrase 'guided practice' is quite clear," Prof. Umbridge said, her voice dripping with false, condescending sweetness.

"Well, I ask because the other objectives don't say anything about spells," Parvati explained. "All the OWLs prep guides I've looked at mention a practical component of the Defense test, so I hoped we'd be practicing spells..."

"We will be participating in guided practice of the principles discussed in this class," Umbridge said, quoting the board almost exactly without even glancing at it. "If the Ordinary Wizarding Level is the cause of your worries, you should know that the Ministry's Academic Examination Bureau makes it a rule to confer with the instructor of a subject in designing that year's test. We have no reason to fear."

At that, Parvati relaxed. However, Harry was in the seat just behind Hermione, and he noticed her back stiffen and her knuckles curl beside her still-closed textbook.

"Now, let's begin our reading, shall we?" Prof. Umbridge clucked, patronisingly chipper. "We can deal with any other questions afterward."

As instructed, Harry turned to the textbook. Defense Against the Dark Arts, it explained, was surely a cornerstone of any young Witch or Wizard's education, but "new challenges" had emerged in recent years for which the traditional approach to the subject was ill-prepared. " _Many wizards remember times of violence and strife even within their own lifetimes..._ " the book continued.

 _It was the war!_ Harry thought testily. _You people can't say Voldemort's name; can't you even admit there was a war?_

" _...But we have thankfully shut the book on that dark chapter of history. Clinging to attitudes it taught us will not prepare us for a new world in which understanding and co-operation are more crucial to our safety than the ability to cast violent spells on an imagined attacker._ "

Harry felt his eyebrows twist up in confusion. What was this author talking about? Understanding and co-operation were goals he could get behind - but not ones he would ever have expected Umbridge to teach. More to the point, he had never once had to _imagine_ an attacker to defend himself from with "violent spells," and the book had certainly not been shut on the Dark Lord, no matter how much anybody wanted to believe it.

He glanced around to try to gauge his classmates' reactions, but found that Umbridge was walking up and down the rows of desks, looking over all their shoulders to make sure they were doing as told. He tucked his head back down and hoped he hadn't been noticed.

" _Lingering suspicion serves only to marginalise many great wizards and cast doubt on their contributions to society._ "

 _Oh, like the Malfoys_ , Harry realised. Was that who he was supposed to understand and co-operate with?

" _We have all been shocked by news headlines of violence of wizard against wizard. Traditional Defensive teaching has been unable to stem this violence and may indeed contribute to it through the potential for misunderstanding to escalate..._ " Harry sat trying to think of a single newspaper headline where anything he'd learned in Defense had caused a shocking violent incident "through the potential for misunderstanding to escalate."

Both those ponderings and his reading were cut short by the slight sound of footsteps and the sense of a large, warm body moving nearer. Prof. Umbridge was passing Harry's desk on her patrol. His mind froze as he felt her beady eyes drilling into the back of his neck, and he only stared desperately at his book as she came up where he could hear her breath. One more step and she was beside his desk...

And there she stopped. " _Hem-hem._ "

Harry slowly unbent his neck. Umbridge was not looking at him, but down over Hermione's shoulder - the textbook was still closed on her desk.

"Do we have a problem here, Miss...?"

"Hermione Granger." She had to turn sharply to face the teacher. "I've read the assignment already, Ma'am."

"In that case perhaps we should read it a second time," Umbridge suggested. Her voice had that extra dollop of sickly syrup that Harry was coming to read as annoyance.

"I've read it three times already Ma'am; I've read the entire book."

"Well, that shows a good deal of initiative. If you enjoy the book so much, why don't you just refresh yourself on it while letting your classmates get on with their reading?" With that, Umbridge started off again, apparently considering the matter closed.

But Hermione didn't. "Because I disagree with it, Ma'am," she said firmly.

That brought Prof. Umbridge up short. She walked around behind her desk to face Hermione from the vantage point of a teacher's full authority. "You disagree with it," she echoed. "You, Miss Granger, disagree with the Ministry-approved text." Harry had been wrong about the extra syrup. This was what Umbridge sounded like when annoyed. "And in what way do you disagree with the authorities in the field, Miss Granger?"

Harry was impressed to see his friend - usually a teacher's pet - not backing down an inch. "For one thing," Hermione said, "the entire text assumes that human wizards are never malicious. For every situation it tells you to reason with them, and I agree with trying that first, but the book doesn't talk about anything to do if that doesn't work."

"And why shouldn't it work?" Umbridge asked.

"Because not every person who might try to hurt you will just let you talk them out of it. Sometimes there are problems you just can't deal with that way."

"Ah, because some of our fellow wizards are violent beasts who cannot be reasoned with, is that it, Miss Granger?" Umbridge asked. Her syrup was back.

"That isn't what I-"

"I was warned, of course, that I might encounter such unfortunate attitudes in this school," the teacher continued, ignoring Hermione's response. "As students here, none of you can be properly blamed; it is the administration and staff who have so shamefully failed."

"What do you mean 'failed'?" Dean blurted out.

"Excuse me, Mr...?"

"Dean Thomas."

"In the future, Mr. Thomas, we will all raise our hands if we wish to speak," Umbridge said. "Headmaster Dumbledore has had difficulty staffing this position for a number of years now, a fact which in itself deserves explanation, but even granting that, he has committed some unpardonable errors."

"Oh, like Lockhart," Seamus piped up. When Umbridge turned to him, he belatedly put up his hand.

"Mr...?"

"Finnegan. Seamus Finnegan."

"Mr. Lockhart was a well-renowned expert in his field," Umbridge said, as grave and sweet as a paid funeral mourner. "We should ask you, Mr. Finnegan, to show more respect for a man who suffered debilitating injury in the heroic cause of teaching you."

Even as Lavender made a tragic little whimper and several classmates sunk shamefacedly into their chairs, Harry fought an urge to roll his eyes. _Was a well-renowned phony in the heroic cause of photo-posing._ Lockhart had spent his entire career magically erasing the memories of less photogenic heroes and researchers and claiming their exploits for his own as a path to fame and fortune. He would probably still be doing it if his own Memory Charm hadn't backfired on him when he aimed it at Harry and Ron.

"By unpardonable errors," Umbridge explained, "I mean that in the past two years Dumbledore has employed professors who cast illegal curses not only in front of you but _upon you_..."

Ron put up his hand. "You can't blame Dumbledore for that; it wasn't really the teacher he'd hired."

"Mr...?"

"Weasley."

"In the future, Mr. Weasley, we will all raise our hands _and wait to be called upon_ if we wish to speak," Umbridge declared. "And the Headmaster is properly held responsible for who is teaching any class at all times, and for authorising the content of any lesson."

Ron cast Harry a questioning, expectant glance as Umbridge lectured him. Harry pushed down his eyebrows and twitched his shoulders in a gesture of "What do you want me to do?"

Personally, though, he thought the hands-on lessons in resisting the Unforgiveable Imperius Curse were the most useful thing he'd ever learned, although it certainly did give him a chill to know now that he'd been under the spell of a real Death Eater.

"His choices have also to exposed you all to the presence of extremely dangerous Dark Creatures..."

Dean raised his hand.

"...Of a kind which should only be dealt with by highly experienced Ministry professionals. Yes, Mr. Thomas?"

"If you mean Professor Lupin, I felt safer with him here than anyone else we've had. He knew how to handle every creature he brought in."

Umbridge's wide mouth tightened up and she regarded Dean with a piercing, too-compassionate gaze. "All except one," she pronounced, "and it by far the worst."

"Ah, a violent beast who cannot be reasoned with, is that it?" Hermione remarked tartly.

From what Harry could see, no one needed an extra hint to know that "it" was Lupin himself. Surely the very idea that only "highly experienced Ministry professionals" could safely deal with their kindhearted former teacher must strike everyone in the room as absurd...

"We had not called on you, Miss Granger. Ten points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn."

Hermione didn't bother to raise her hand for anything further. She angrily tapped the edge of her textbook on her desk, twisted around for a moment, and caught Harry's eye over her shoulder. Ron was still casting looks at him, too. _Do they expect me to blow up at her?_ Harry wondered. Did they _want_ him to? Certainly he was disgusted by her attitude, but he was in no way keen to get into trouble with even such a farce of a teacher...

"It is quite understandable," Prof. Umbridge continued, "that being so irresponsibly exposed to these dangerous elements and to certain statements made, that many of us would succumb to an unrealistic sense of threat. Some of these lessons may have been appropriate for advanced students going into Auror training, but in a generalised course of study, they serve only to confuse and mislead us. It is simply not the case that villains lurk around every corner to cast Unforgiveable Curses on us, and the Ministry is at our disposal in the highly unlikely event that we encounter one. The terrible danger we have been led to believe in simply does not exist, and it is high time this subject was taught in such a way as to address that reality."

Seamus and Hermione each raised a hand.

"...Miss Granger?"

"'Addressing reality' is just what I'm concerned about, Ma'am. I've been looking at the 'Guided Practice' exercises in the textbook and they're obviously not realistic at all! In the only one where the characters resort to spells, the defender casts 'Orchideous' and conjures up flowers instead of attacking, and then the aggressor starts _crying_ and suddenly it's as if they're best friends!"

Seamus doubled over with what sounded like a constricted sneeze and choking fit. Dean and Parvati began searching their textbooks with far more energy than Umbridge could have inspired, and Harry also couldn't resist flipping to a Guided Practice to see if Hermione was exaggerating. She wasn't.

"I know the examination board will confer with you," she said, "but I really don't think this will get us through the practical OWL."

Parvati didn't think so either, Harry guessed, judging by the look on her face as she leafed desperately about the textbook.

"Now, now, no need for us all to become alarmed," Umbridge insisted. "Paradigm shifts don't happen all in a day, do they? Please just leave worrying about the examinations to the instructor for now. Mr. Finnegan, I believe you had a comment...?"

Seamus had mostly recovered but was still dabbing tears from his eyes. "I was just going to say, if there's really no big danger, what about the maniac who impersonated the teacher last year and was casting spells on us? He existed, didn't he? And nobody caught him until the end of term."

"What about the werewolf, if those are so terrible?" Dean jumped in to add.

"Speaking out of turn, Mr. Thomas; ten points," Umbridge declared.

In the meantime, Neville had put up his hand.

"Yes, Mr...?"

"Long- Neville- ah, Neville Longbottom. Ma'am."

"Yes, Neville?"

"What about s-Sirius b-b-Black, Ma'am?" Neville quavered. "They never caught him."

"Hey, yeah!" Ron burst out. "That night I woke up and he was standing over my bed with a knife! I guess I should've just asked him nicely, 'Oh, Mr. Black, may I nip out and send a quick owl to the Ministry, and then would you mind terribly waiting until they come catch you before you stab me?' He might have agreed to it! Worth a try, eh?"

Ron caught Harry's eye as he held forth. _Is he needling me on purpose, talking about Sirius like that?_ Harry wondered. Ron knew perfectly well that Sirius hadn't wanted to hurt him that night; he'd been after Scabbers, the pet rat that had turned out to be Pettigrew in his Animagus form.

Seamus clamped his hands over his face and again made choking sounds of suppressed laughter.

"Speaking out of turn _and_ cheek, Mr. Weasley; twenty points," Prof. Umbridge declared. "That unfortunate incident is also the responsibility of the school administration. Headmaster Dumbledore severely limited his allowances to the Azkaban Guards and thus prevented Black's prompt capture."

 _Hooray for Dumbledore!_ Harry thought to himself.

Hermione raised her hand again.

"Yes, Miss Granger? Do we have something we wish to say?"

"Yes, we do," Hermione said. "You said werewolves are too dangerous, but now you're saying Dumbledore should have let Dementors into the school when they're much worse!"

"The Azkaban Guards are in the employ of the Ministry of Magic, Miss Granger, and despite what certain radical critics may claim, they are quite safe except to the rare deserving criminal."

 _Apparently that means me_ , Harry thought, having been attacked by them twice now, to say nothing of the effect of merely being near one. He caught himself testily drumming his fingers on the desk and stuffed his fist into his other hand to stop it, but Dean and Lavender had already noticed and stared at him, as did Ron. Harry glared at his friend then looked sharply away.

"And another ten points for cheek," Umbridge added. By now, however, none of Harry's classmates seemed as interested in House Points as in challenging Umbridge and her ridiculous textbook. Even Parvati and Lavender began muttering to each other rather than heeding the teacher, and Dean leaned over to whisper something to Hermione - the usual model student who this time had led the mutiny.

" _Unfortunately_ ," Umbridge called out, shrilling loudly to try to regain the class's attention, "it must be acknowledged that these events _did_ occur - _however_ , we must understand that these are very unusual occurrences. That they should have been concentrated around this school in the past several years is a mere coincidence, which the Ministry is looking into, have no fear. The fact remains: statements you have heard about some... tremendous resurgence of danger, some imminent lurking threat... _are. completely. false._ As your assigned reading states, we wizards and witches have recently closed the book on a very dark chapter of history, and young people like yourselves should look back on that history and feel blessed not to have experienced it firsthand - _not_ use it to frighten yourselves and your peers." She caught Harry's eye and stared directly at him on those words. "The recent rumors that we are living once again in such perilous times are the product of someone's fertile imagination... _and. nothing. more._ "

Harry felt a feverish heat well up from his belly as Umbridge stared at him eye-to-eye and let her words fall one by one. This was not the heat of shame, but of anger. Again, no one needed any prodding to know that she was really talking about Harry's 'fertile imagination' creating the rumors of the Dark Lord's return. It was true: not only could they not admit he was back now, Umbridge couldn't even bring herself to mention that Voldemort had ever existed, that it had ever been a war...

All Harry's classmates looked on as he and the teacher faced off. The room went so quiet that the others must be holding their breath waiting for what would happen.

 _The last thing I need is to get in trouble with a teacher... Arguing with her won't help anything..._ Harry repeated to himself, clenching and unclenching his jaw. He met her gaze unblinkingly for that torturously long moment, but he remained quite silent.

At last Umbridge showed a smile of false-kindly satisfaction, apparently thinking that Harry was properly cowed. "Now then, we've had a lively little discussion already, haven't we? But let's get back to our lesson. Miss Granger, I daresay a fourth reading wouldn't hurt you a bit," the teacher said, then turned and crossed back to the chalkboard. Harry at last breathed freely as he saw her set an enchanted, three-headed chalk-holder drawing the guidelines, then stepped onto a footstool to reach the highest ones. Presently he was morbidly fascinated and disturbed as he watched Umbridge and discovered that the inhumanly-perfect script on the chalkboard was indeed her handwriting.

" _Harry!_ " Ron whispered from the desk next to his as he turned back to the textbook at last. Umbridge was scribbling away obliviously on the chalkboard, and Lavender and Parvati were already whispering again.

" _What?_ "

" _What's the silent act? You're letting her spout all that?_ "

" _Well, what do you want me to do about-?_ "

" **Mr. Potter.** "

Umbridge stepped back off her footstool and turned around quite deliberately. "We're glad that you've finally decided to join the class discussion, although it _is_ reading time now."

He threw himself back against his chair. ' _Speaking out of turn, ten points;' who cares?_

"Perhaps you have something you'd like to say? Hmm...?"

To his surprise, Umbridge approached his desk and locked eyes with him again. One pale eyebrow perked up, along with one corner of her wide mouth, tugging the painted cherry in the middle of her lips slightly toward that side.

That twitch of her mouth finally struck a spark over the volatile heat in Harry's gut. _She's trying to draw me out. She wants me to blow up at her. All right, Professor Umbridge..._ He decided not to give her the satisfaction of a shouting match, but if this was the way she wanted it, he wasn't going to pull any punches.

He spoke very clearly and deliberately. "Yes, there is something I'd like to say: if Voldemort isn't back, then why is Cedric Diggory dead?"

He heard Lavender smother a scream. Neville made a little squeak. Parvati, Dean, and Seamus stared, but he thought he saw Hermione straighten up proudly.

"Young Mr. Diggory's death was a tragic accident," Umbridge said firmly.

"How do you know? You weren't there!" Ron shot back.

Umbridge didn't break her staring contest with Harry to dock Ron any points, nor even as she answered him. "The Ministry of Magic has reviewed the physical and forensic evidence in the case and has determined that it was an accident."

"' _Forensic evidence' my foot!_ " Harry declared, forgetting his intention not to shout. " _ **Accidents leave marks!**_ The Killing Curse doesn't."

This time Lavender cried aloud and buried her face in her hands. Neville went white and trembled.

Umbridge surveyed the stunned reactions. "This classroom is hardly the place to conduct a criminal investigation, Mr. Potter," she clucked, smiling at him even amid the air of disaster. "We can't have you terrifying your classmates with such theatrics now, can we? You will have detention with me, Mr. Potter, but for now you may do your reading in the office while the rest of us continue. The Introduction and Chapter One." She opened the door for him.

Harry snatched up his book and marched into Umbridge's office without another word. At least it got him out of class early. When she shut the door behind him, he was hardly in the mood to go on reading Wilbert Slinkhard's drivel. He threw the book hard - but not as hard as he would have liked - onto her spotless desk and flopped down in a chair, seizing a fistful of his hair in frustration.

Fred and George hadn't known the half of it, but they certainly had a point. This was a year of Fridays Harry would never be getting back.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Twelve: Quidditch Trials**_

* * *

  
 _Author's Notes on Chapter Eleven_

Once again, can't accuse myself of getting nothing done, although this one ran long in a really big way. Not much for it, tho. These author's notes run long, too, but what the heck...

For starters, I admit it's hideously fanficcish to make Cho half-Japanese; so sue me. The main appeal was just muddying it up, suggesting that life is more complex than "Cho Chang" "recent Chinese extraction."

You'll probably notice the absence of Luna Lovegood on the train. I liked her, don't get me wrong, but I... um... frankly don't have any use for her, so she's on the cutting room floor. I thought it was straining believability, for one thing, to have the heroes not have noticed such an aggressively quirky character before, and while I find her quite charming, on a meta-story level I, as a geek, also feel her as something of a shameful stereotype. Rowling could have given the geeks a human face, instead she took it too far and gave us a nutter. An adorable nutter, I grant, but upon review, the judges find that biscuit must be withheld. Sorry.

One bit of canon-vengeance I planned from the start of this project was the Sorting Hat Song, Non-Crack-Smoking Version. Apparently in canon, Slytherin is just plain evil, and Hufflepuff is the Reject Room. "Yeah, that heroic kid who bit it a few months ago? Nobody wanted him, either." On a less petty level, I am quite proud of the song I came up with-but when Hermione praised it, that was her getting political, not me being egotistical. (Sorry, Ron, it's not the badge; she's just like that. BTW, folks, the "snow princess" thing just hit me out of nowhere; I'm not sure it fits, but there it sits for the current draft anyway.)

Legantine (the "leg" is pronounced as in "legend"), one of the first years, is named as an anagram-homage of Eglantine Price, the Angela Lansbury character in the movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." They bear no further resemblance or relation to each other.

Going into the latter part of the chapter, I was still trying to get a handle on Umbridge, how I wanted to play her and how mind-bendingly useless and outright humiliating her class was. I tried for "incompetent teacher" touches like her inability to maintain control and inconsistent discipline. More importantly, I didn't want to play Umbridge as transparently evil as in canon (for example, she refers to the "dangerous werewolf" with that paid-mourner syrupy gravity, not with a nasty little laugh), but I did want to make her every bit as cloying. For one thing, my Umbridge's use of the first-person plural was calculated to be irritatingly presumptuous, yet wholly in keeping with the facade of good intentions. Something I found unavoidable in that vein but I do want to mention: it would be too easy to read Umbridge as a Stupid Liberal, with the touchy-feely non-violence and such. However, I think it more proper to view her and her ilk as co-opting some Liberal aspects for their own purposes-e.g. her warm fuzzy tolerance extends mainly to rich powerful people she likes.

(BTW, I belatedly realised that Harry sees the Hufflepuffs get out of class with Umbridge and hears Fred and George talk about having her all day, er, on the same day. But I decided to leave it as it was. Whatever you do, don't try to add up a Hogwarts class schedule from the professors' end; you'll hurt yourself.)

Something else that came up in the class: Parvati and Lavender frustrate me. Near as I can tell, they're the only two Gryffindor girls in Harry's year besides Hermione, and I just felt like I didn't have anything to work with in them. They're Trelawney's groupies-no accounting for brains there-and neither of them has been shown to be much more. Occasionally I worry about gender balance because in filling in my own HP world I tend to go with adding strong and/or interesting female characters whenever possible, but despite any numerical equality that can be pointed to, let's face it: the canon can be pretty sexist. Trying to write Parvati and Lavender made me remember that as I hadn't in some time, as I found that those two were coming across to me as the shallowest people in the room, and I didn't know what I could realistically do about it. At the least, I think Parvati is worried about the tests because she wants to be a Healer, and so does need very strong test scores. (Am I missing something? If somebody can explain to me how Lavender Brown is Boss and Cool, please do! Except I'm not going to read HBP or DH, so don't bother telling me to.)

Speaking of the tests, our favorite "snarky git" teacher did not break character (I hope), but I have to say I like his attitude toward the students' exams.

On a general level, as I wrote this I was also struggling to get a handle on writing the school portion of the story. (It doesn't help that I'm quite a Moony and Padfoot person, so my favorite characters have been removed from play for the most part until Christmas Holiday.) By the end I felt like I was finding my feet a bit more, but it was still fodder for the regularly-scheduled attack of "OMG, I suck at this all'va sudden!" ;

Also I note that in the canon (I know, I said I wouldn't go sniffing there...), Harry had a lot more trouble with his classmates buying into the official line discrediting him than what I've... er, gotten 'round to showing yet. I did always think that was a bit silly, though; I mean the boys in his house and year-who sleep in the same dorm with him, for goshsakes-you wouldn't expect them to just buy this drivel unless they're dumber than I believe any of these people to be.

  



	12. Quidditch Trials

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Twelve  
 _Quidditch Trials_**

Harry slowly calmed down, and he managed to read most of the assigned section of the textbook out of sheer boredom. He lifted his head and listened through the office door to the "classroom discussion," which near as he could tell consisted mainly of Umbridge herself saying again what Slinkhard had said in the book, and taking four times as long to do it. Occasionally he did hear a student's voice, but it seemed Umbridge was maintaining classroom control now by avoiding calling on Hermione or Ron - or Dean, or Seamus, and once it sounded like Parvati was treading on thin ice with her persistent concern about the OWLs.

As the class period ended, he steeled himself for Umbridge to come in and deal with him, but when she marched into her office, despite her smug look, she merely said "Your detention will be here in my office after class next Friday. There will be no need to go to dinner beforehand; you will take it here. Dismissed, Mr. Potter." She didn't need to say so twice.

Outside in the hall, Hermione and Ron had waited for him, and they quickly caught up to the rest of their class, whom Ginny was there tailing toward the great hall for dinner, notebook in hand. She was talking to Lavender, who glanced over her shoulder, obviously noticed Harry approaching, and went silent.

"Am I interrupting something?" he questioned.

"No, nothing," Lavender said hastily.

"What is it with you and the exams?" Dean was asking Parvati.

"Oh, you need awfully good scores to get into Healer training," she said. "I probably won't get above a W in Potions already..."

Harry glanced over at Ginny, trying to surreptitiously get a look at her notes, but then he noticed the stylus in her hand and blinked at it. She'd been jotting in her notebook not with a quill but with an automatic pencil: a plastic one, obviously of Muggle origin. "Where'd you-?"

"Oh, this?" she said, twiddling it in her fingers. "Well I can't very well run around all over with an inkpot, can I? And Ever-Ink Quills are expensive! Dean says he likes these to draw with, let me blag one off him."

"I just don't know why you had to bring poor Cedric into it is all!" Lavender blurted suddenly.

"Well, excuse me!" Harry snapped. A moment later, though, he had to admit that it had been a cheap shot. "I thought it'd be even worse just to let them sweep it under the rug," he added more soberly.

"But if they looked into it, the evidence you know, and they thought it was an accident..."

Harry reined himself in from saying "That was a lie!" "I don't think they got a closer look at 'the evidence' than what I did," he replied.

"You shouldn't have let her get under your skin like that," Seamus suggested. "She's just a big puffed-up buffoon. Means the class'll be worthless, but it's not as if she's the first."

"Maybe you're right..." Harry admitted. In his gut, though, he didn't quite agree with Seamus. Umbridge wasn't just incompetent; he had a feeling she was something even worse.

"I don't think you can blame anybody going off on her, though," Ron argued. "Talking like that about the Headmaster right at the head of a class!"

"And that rubbish she spouted about Professor Lupin!" Dean agreed.

"Is Dumbledore going to let her get away with that?" Ron questioned.

Ginny, walking next to Harry, jotted in her notebook as if she thought her brother's outburst particularly good. "What do you think, Hermione?" she asked.

Hermione had been walking along in silence. "I think we're going to need to find some other way of learning anything useful about Defense. She certainly isn't going to teach it to us," she said, very seriously.

"Oh, come on, I don't think it's that big of a deal..." Seamus disagreed.

He said it in an innocent tone, not even turning back, but Harry was strangely stunned by it. _He doesn't believe me. He may not think I'm off my head, but he doesn't believe me about Voldemort being back._

Not everyone shared Seamus's carefree attitude however. "What do you think we should do?" Neville asked Hermione.

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "I heard once that Professor Flitwick used to be a duelling champion. Second year when we had the Duelling Club, I looked through the old yearbooks in the Library, and I found out that he used to run a school duelling league - not like what Lockhart had, I mean a real student chapter of the Duelling League of Great Britain."

This was the first real use Harry had ever heard of for the plethora of old yearbooks mouldering on Madam Pince's shelves.

"It's not quite the same as real combat," his friend admitted, "but it would at least give us some things we could use."

"Yeah, even Lockhart's club managed to teach us the Disarming Charm," Harry recalled - the spell that had saved him from Voldemort.

Hermione touched Ginny's shoulder. "Let's keep this quiet until we can talk to Professor Flitwick about it, all right?"

"Oh. Right." She flipped over her pencil and rubbed furiously at a block of her notes with the eraser as they arrived in the great hall. "This doesn't work too well..."

"Oh, I never use the eraser, I just scribble things out," Dean said.

"Should we go and talk to Professor Flitwick now?" Neville wondered.

"No." Hermione drew him closer and spoke low. "Not where Umbridge might hear it. Let's catch him after class Tuesday, right before lunch, all right?"

"Oh. All right."

"Ah, don't the Gryffindor Prefects look so sweet together," Draco Malfoy called as their group passed by the Slytherin table. Hermione ignored him, but Neville turned pink.

"Not half as sweet as the Slytherin ones," Pansy Parkinson said more softly as she nudged up next to Draco with her matching badge.

"So true, so true..."

Harry just rolled his eyes as he and his friends crossed to their own table and settled in, except for Ginny.

"Aren't you having dinner?" Ron asked her.

"Oh, we're printing the paper tonight," she said. "McGonagall let us order up Higgledy's Thumping Great Mushroom Pizza from the village, so-"

"Oh, lucky!" Ron declared. "Have you had those, Harry? They grow mushroom caps as big as that-" he held out his arms in a circle, "-and they fill them up with sauce and cheese, and all kinds of-"

"I know what a _pizza_ is, Ron!"

"Oh. I never quite know what Muggles eat or not..."

"We're in McGonagall's classroom if you want to drop by; I'm sure Lee wouldn't mind," Ginny said. "Probably be up to all hours..."

"I thought you were trying out for Quidditch," Harry said.

"Oh, the trials aren't until next week - we asked all the captains for the paper. See you!" she called brightly and hurried off.

* * *

The first Quidditch practice of the year was bright and early the next morning, and Harry woke up earlier still. He had managed to get all but one Charms Review finished the previous evening before an early bedtime and now crept out of bed even before dawn. Very quietly he washed up and dressed, so as not to disturb his still-snoring dorm-mates, but as he got out his Firebolt and Broom Maintenance Kit to take down to the common room, he was surprised to hear someone else moving around outside.

Descending the stairs that connected the various years' boys' dorms, he found Lee Jordan taking an extra blanket out of the linen closet. "Morning, Harry. There's leftover pizza if you want any," he greeted, and they went together out into the common room.

Ginny was curled up in an armchair, apparently having collapsed there and fallen asleep. Lee tossed the blanket over her and gently tucked it in around her.

"When did you get back?" Harry asked softly. He took a slice of the mushroom cap pizza from one of the boxes strewn on a table; it was quite good, even cold.

"Just a few minutes ago. We got all the papers printed up, and then me and Ginny put them out on the tables in the Great Hall so everyone'll get them at breakfast. I'm afraid she knocked herself out," Lee said with a grin, looking at once kindly, amused, impressed, and proud.

"You seem to be doing fine."

"Oh, I had a nip of Exertincture. I'll be dead to the world once it wears off, so you'll have to tell me how it goes over." He took some pizza and nodded toward Ginny. "I swear she wrote half of it herself."

"You need more than one reporter," Harry said.

"Well, we printed a call for more, but I'm not sure it'll slow her down any. Now, I'm gonna stop bothering you and get some homework in while the potion lasts." With that he flopped onto the couch by the table in a swish of his dreadlocks and got a book and parchment out of his bag.

Harry settled in on another couch and inspected his Firebolt carefully. After practice, he thought, he'd give the handle a coat of polish. For now he gently stroked dried bits of Aunt Petuna's lilacs out of its silky straws and clipped off two that had gotten crimped. He looked up every time Ginny cooed or shifted in her sleep, and once half-jumped at the sound of shuffling parchments. Lee's homework spilled off his lap as he literally fell over on the couch and began snoring; apparently when Exertincture wore off, it happened all at once.

The first rays of dawn shone straight into the windows when Angelina Johnson came downstairs with the other two Chasers, Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet, followed quickly by Fred and George who were the two Beaters. The team quickly polished off the pizza and cleared away the incriminating empty boxes on their way out to the Quidditch Pitch.

Angelina, the new team captain, said that after missing a year of play, she was taking the first practice just to get everyone into the feel of it again, then the following week they'd hold trials for a new Keeper - Oliver Wood, their Keeper and Team Captain, had graduated at the end of Harry's third year - and also for some possible reserve positions.

At the other end of the Pitch, the Slytherins were already holding their trials. Crabbe and Goyle looked to be trying out for Beaters and coming in as favorites by virtue of clubbing their competitors when the team captain turned his back. Draco, who was the Slytherin Seeker, sat watching from their section of the stands, where the seven Nimbus Two Thousand and One brooms that the Malfoys had bought the Slytherin team stood in a neat row. _None of them has a Firebolt, though,_ Harry thought with a satisfied smile.

Angelina and the Weasley Twins cast barrier charms around a section of the pitch and released the bludgers inside so that Fred and George could practice on them while giving the other players a chance to get their bearings without being attacked by them. Harry found Angelina's idea of a first session just to play around and loosen up refreshing compared to Wood's Spartan practice regimes, and when she released the Golden Snitch, he kicked off after it, but took some time just to enjoy flying rather than looking for it. No shame either, he thought, in stopping awhile to watch his team-mates. Angelina, Katie, and Alicia tossed the Quaffle around energetically and took spontaneous turns guarding goal-hoops and trying shots. Fred and George kept the bludgers well under control, knocking them this way and that like racquetball experts.

After a brisk workout of barrel rolls, tight turns, short and long sprints at every challenging vector he could think of, Harry at last got down to business. He caught sight of the Snitch zipping around above his head and aimed upward, concentrating on following it with his eyes and trusting his broom to follow. After a brief chase, he managed to head it off and wheel tightly around it, leaning over sharply to snatch it. It was strangely fun and new to have no one around him react as the little winged sphere struggled in his fingers, and he began playing with releasing it and catching it again, seeing how far away he could let it fly and still manage to grab it, if he could roll his broom over and catch it upside down, and various other experiments.

After one particularly good catch, he heard a distant patter of clapping. At first he looked for his team and found that he'd wandered farther from them than he'd realised, but the sound was coming from the stands, where the blue-robed Ravenclaw team sat being lectured by their captain. Cho's solitary applause thrilled him as much as the whole of the packed stands would have done, and she waved up at him. He waved back with the Snitch in his fist.

But then, as he was smiling down at her, a horrible thought struck him: Cho was the Ravenclaw Seeker. Eventually he would have to beat her to the Snitch; he'd have to go up against her... Third year, he'd managed it. She hadn't been a match for him back then, but that was two years ago, and as far as Harry was concerned it could have been two centuries for as much as that victory was worth now. _Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw is the last game of the year,_ he reminded himself. _It's a long time before I'll have to worry about it._ But nonetheless his height above the pitch suddenly made him a little dizzy...

Cho cupped her hands to her face and shouted at him - he didn't know why. She pointed animatedly. Harry looked up to find a wiry, green-robed older boy on a broomstick just in front of him; it was the Slytherins' team captain, Montague.

"You caught _ours_ Potter," he snarled, then jabbed a finger back up the pitch. "Yours is over there somewhere."

"Oh, sorry." Not even the Slytherins could spoil Harry's good mood as he clapped the Snitch into Montague's hand. Draco hovered at a slight distance, a little higher so that he could glare down at Harry. Montague threw the Slytherins' Snitch hard at him, and Draco barely dodged being hit with it before taking off in pursuit.

Harry couldn't help but laugh as he turned his broom and flew back toward his team-mates.

* * *

Fred and George laughed and joked all the way in to breakfast about Draco losing the Snitch to Harry even in his team's private practice. When they arrived in the great hall, the whole room was alive with rustling papers. At every table, students were poring over the Hogwarts X-Press, pointing things out in it to their friends, or working the crossword that Harry glimpsed over someone's shoulder. At the head table, that appeared to be what Headmaster Dumbledore was doing as he pored intently over a copy of the paper with a quill in his hand. Umbridge, on the other hand, was frowning at one, clucking her tongue and making notes on her clipboard.

At the Gryffindor table, Lee was nowhere to be seen, but Ginny was there despite rings under her eyes. Her slightly frizzed braids were obviously left over from yesterday, but she wore a wide smile. "'Morning!" she yawned.

"'Morning." Harry sat down and picked up a paper.

"How was practice?" Ron asked over his copy. Hermione was the only one with a Daily Prophet.

"Oh, it was great!" George exulted. He and Fred plopped down to tell all about it.

Harry was still full from the pizza and read his paper over a glass of juice. Dean had done an impressive title image, and photos by Colin Creevey were scattered throughout. Lee had written the introduction, as well as the sports page which told when all the House Quidditch teams were holding practices and trials.

Each House had its own page, with Ravenclaw's being the most notable for the large crossword puzzle; Harry recognised several questions from his homework among the clues. The Hufflepuffs, for their part, invited everyone interested to attend an organ recital in their common room - their pipe organ had supposedly belonged to Helga Hufflepuff herself, and traditionally one member of the House was chosen from each year and taught to play it. Gryffindor profiled their new first-year members and requested a House Page editor other than Lee. Harry thought the Slytherins' contribution looked a bit sparse, and Ginny explained that McGonagall reviewed the paper before it went to press. In delegating the responsibility to her, Dumbledore had apparently asked her to be as lasseiz-faire as possible, but the "Potter is a Twerp" feature had been cut as she laid down a general rule against pieces attacking a particular student. The Slytherins' replacement editorial about why they were glad Hagrid was gone hadn't run nearly as long, but apparently attacks on a particular staff member were fair game.

The back page credited everyone who had worked on the paper - somehow Harry had never known before that "Ginny" was short for "Ginger" - and also printed various calls for contributors. Drawings and essays were welcomed and students were invited to apply as staff reporters and artists. A tribute to Cedric Diggory was planned for the issue-after-next, and contributions to it were especially requested.

Looking inside for what Ginny had written, Harry found the interview page, which, so it said, would usually be a staff interview, but this time featured her conversation on the Hogwarts Express with two incoming first years: Legantine Price, who was many generations Pureblood; and Kelley Randall, who was Muggle-born and had never even had the slightest inkling that Magic was real until she got the Hogwarts letter. Ginny had obviously sat in a compartment with the two of them as she asked what they were expecting, dreading, or looking forward to about attending Hogwarts, and Harry smiled as it reminded him of his own first year trip. By the end of it, the younger girls even seemed to have forgotten the difference in their blood. Ginny had bought them each a bag of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans and finished up the interview by asking their favorite flavor. Legantine's all-time favorite was Black Pepper; she said all her friends saved pepper-flavored beans for her because only she would eat them, but her favorite that she'd happened to get that day was Blue Steak. Kelley's favorite was a pearly gold bean unlike anything she had ever tasted, but from her description - "a sort of a buttery sugary biscuity soda, but it was hot and it was good like that." - Ginny and Legantine had deduced that it was Butterbeer.

Ginny had also written the piece about Defense Against the Dark Arts under the new professor. "I hope to talk to Prof. Umbridge soon, so watch the Interview page. In the meantime I thought reactions would best speak for themselves," it said, and from there the article consisted entirely of student quotes.

They were identified only by the speaker's year and House, but Harry could put names to a few of them. Fred and George's "That's a year of Tuesdays we'll never be getting back" was included, as was a glowing review by a Slytherin Fifth Year whom Harry guessed to be Draco. "Any way you look at it, the class has been a disaster the last few years," the person had said; "It's so refreshing to see it taught by someone with perspective and sense." No one else was quite that laudatory however.

"I'm hoping to get into Auror training; I just don't know what to do," said a Ravenclaw Seventh Year, apparently as concerned with exams as Parvati. "Her syllabus hardly includes anything that's in the NEWTs prep books. I hate to let a class slide, but I think I'll have to focus on the exam guides instead."

Another Ravenclaw, a Sixth Year, tried to be positive. "Umbridge has a very different take. Her lesson was kind of interesting if you look at it that way."

From a Fourth Year Hufflepuff: "It was really confusing. After what I read in the Daily Prophet all summer, I felt like I didn't know what to think about anything, and now I know even less."

Even a First Year Slytherin disapproved, saying "I thought learning about the Dark Arts would be exciting, but that was the dullest class I've had yet! I like Charms much better."

And of course Ron's outburst had been put in at last. "Talking like that about the Headmaster right at the head of a class! Is Dumbledore going to let her get away with it?"

"Wow," Ron said, reading over his own words, "you really let Umbridge have it."

"I didn't try to, honestly," Ginny said. "That is, I had wanted to alternate bad ones with good ones, but Draco and Marietta were the only people who- _Oh!_ " She clapped her hands over her mouth and flushed red. "Um... Pretend I didn't say that..."

"Well," Hermione spoke at last, " _someone_ else thinks she's just wonderful."

She tossed her Daily Prophet down on the table. "UMBRIDGE A SUCCESS AT HOGWARTS!" blared the headline, and a photo showed Cornelius Fudge delightedly shaking her hand.

"Fudge wasn't saying very much, but he made hints about 'relying on her in an even greater capacity' sometime soon," Hermione said sourly.

Ron threw down his spoon, and it made a disgusted rattle in his empty bowl. "Everyone brace yourselves."

Another story in the bottom corner of the front page caught Harry's eye, and he picked it up to look. A wizard named Edgar Frastley had been missing for several days, enough so the paper was finally admitting he might not come out of it on his own. _There's Voldemort, on the front page_ , Harry thought. There was nothing in the story to suggest that the Death Eaters were behind the disappearance, but he felt quite sure. _And Fudge is too busy being intimidated by schoolkids._

* * *

Saturday afternoon, Harry and Ron went with Hermione out to Hagrid's hut and cleaned weeds out of the overgrown pumpkin patch. It was still sad to see the place shadowy and empty, but at least it felt good to be doing something for Hagrid while he was away. Of course they were all ignoring Mrs. Weasley's injunctions against going out on the grounds, but if there was safety in numbers, that was on their side for certain. Plenty of students were out doing homework on the lawn or napping by the lake, enjoying the first warm weekends of the term before autumn weather set in, and indeed that was how Harry and his friends spent Sunday themselves.

Monday morning at breakfast, the Hogwarts X-Press was still the talk of the school and a common sight around the great hall. Lee was quite openly proud of its success, and his calls for submissions and staff got a tremendous response. Although Colin's little brother, Dennis Creevey, was only a second-year, he stepped up to be editor of the Gryffindor House page. The pool of reporters and artists seemed likely to triple as students from all the other house tables came over to tap Lee and inquire. Kelley Randall and Legantine Price had enjoyed being interviewed so much that they wanted to keep participating with the paper. Montague came over from the Slytherin table and loudly demanded a piece of the sports page. Even Cho appeared, although she was just tagging along after Marietta Edgecombe, who wanted to do staff interviews. Harry watched Cho and tried to hear the conversation, but it distracted him as he was dressing his french toast, and by the time the two Ravenclaw girls went back to their own table, syrup had begun to drizzle over the edge of his plate. Ron and Ginny, on either side of him, resorted to dipping their own toast in it.

As it turned out, Lee was right about additional staff not slowing Ginny down, and wresting staff interviews away from her presented a challenge. She was already looking for places to fit a conversation with Prof. Umbridge into her schedule and only grudgingly listened to Harry's suggestion that perhaps she should let the assignment go to Marietta, since Umbridge was still seething over Ginny's first article about her. Indeed, the usual syrupy smile on the new teacher's cherry-painted lips had been missing since Friday dinner.

In Potions Monday morning, Snape set them to bottling the Catalytical Potion they had made on Thursday. In the meantime, the lumps in Neville's had faded to the color of oatmeal, which according to Hermione's research meant it should be fine if he just strained them out. Everyone got out their phial cases, and each group melted a cauldron full of beeswax to seal them with.

"I might try my hand at writing something for the paper," Hermione said as she stirred the wax. When she lifted the stirring rod out she carefully watched a bit of wax harden on it, then dampened the fire under the cauldron a bit. "There, it's the right temperature. -Maybe an opinion piece; they called for open submissions..."

"Oh, you're not going to go banging on about the House-Elves again, are you?" Ron groaned, ladling potion into his first phial.

"Well why not? They cook all our meals, clean up our messes, somebody ought to remind everyone that they're there and that we should appreciate them.

"Just don't go off about setting them all free, all right?"

"And what would be wrong with that?" she demanded.

Harry listened to their argument as he meted out his own potion, and as if in response to Hermione's temper, the phial in his hand suddenly began foaming. "What in the-?"

" _Potter...?_ " Snape had appeared over his shoulder with sharply narrowed eyes. His voice was like a blade of ice. " _What_ is in your phial?"

"My Catalytical Potion. I don't know why it's-"

"You will address me appropriately, Mr. Potter, and I am referring to _that_." With a stroke of his arm, Snape pointed a stirring rod at Harry's phial.

There was indeed an object floating in the boiling potion: a roundish lump wrapped in foiled paper. With a thud in his insides Harry realised it was the piece of candy Fred and George had slipped him that summer at the Black House. He'd tucked it away somewhere in his trunk to save for later and forgotten about it, and now he'd just grabbed a phial out of his case without paying attention...

" _What is it?_ " Snape demanded.

"I... I'm not sure, ah, Sir..." Harry fumbled. He grabbed a stirring rod from the table and tried to fish the confection out.

"You _aren't sure_. Given the nature of the Catalytical Potion, Mr. Potter, I should _not_ have to inform you that pouring it directly onto an unknown substance under uncontrolled conditions is _extremely foolish_ and potentially very _dangerous_."

 _Well what do I do now?_ Harry demanded in his mind, but he didn't dare ask Snape aloud. He caught sight of Draco grinning at him with sadistic glee, but at least Harry managed to catch an end of the candy-paper against the side of the phial and could drag it out...

"Now give me that phial," the teacher ordered. " _Immediately._ Before-"

But it was too late. Snape was just moving to take charge of the ill-fated potion as Harry pried the wrapper up from it - and the candy itself fell out. Harry watched as, seemingly in slow-motion, the pastille floated downward hemorrhaging bubbles and lightly struck the bottom of the crystal vessel...

 _tink._

 **BOOM!**

The phial itself somehow remained intact, but its recoil nearly knocked Harry over as his Catalytical Potion exploded. For a split second he looked around; Prof. Snape was gone. All he saw was a few bits of flying fluff-feathers?-then suddenly something small and yellow attacked his face. Harry cried out and slapped defensively at the flapping, scratching, pecking thing before it zipped away through the air and disappeared into the supply closet.

Draco clucked his tongue. "I just don't think I can get out of reporting this little incident, Potter."

"It must have been a Canary Creme," Hermione surmised, her voice numb with shock. "Those don't last very long, so Professor Snape can... ah... take care of it when he turns back, if we'll all just get on with the assignment..."

"And everyone check your phials carefully now," Pansy Parkinson added. She did it in perfect "concerned teacher" pantomime, but of course it set the Slytherin side of the room off in unrestrained laughter.

Hermione gave Harry an apologetic look and shrug before turning back to her work in silence. Ron looked more than willing to take the Slytherins to task, but Harry clapped him lightly on the arm and got him back to business as well.

For some time they all worked quietly - for too long. Hermione had her phials all sealed and standing neatly in their holder. Neville had strained the lumps out of his potion and struggled to apply globby beeswax seals on each portion of it, and still the class was working unsupervised.

"Um... Do you think we ought to look in on him...?" Neville ventured at last.

Hermione said nothing, but she crossed to the supply closet and peeked inside. "Professor...?"

After a few moments she marched back to where her friends were working. "I... I don't think he's turning back," she admitted. "Harry, Ron, you come with me; we'll go and fetch Madam Pomfrey..."

"Good luck at the hearing, Potter," Draco called after Harry as he followed Hermione out the Potions Dungeon door.

* * *

Harry, Ron, and Hermione ended up arriving late to Care of Magical Creatures as they led Madam Pomfrey to Prof. Snape's supply closet, from whence she removed an angrily fluffing yellow canary to take to the Hospital Wing. Harry wasn't sure which teacher to expect punishment from, but he swallowed his pride and told Madam Pomfrey just what had happened so that no one could accuse him of trying to cover up.

That evening after his double-session of Transfiguration, Harry hesitantly brought the matter up with Prof. McGonagall.

"Yes, the Slytherin Prefects reported it as well," she said. "That _was_ very careless and dangerous, Mr. Potter."

A shamefaced "I know..." was all he could think to reply.

It actually seemed to soften McGonagall's stern countenance just a bit. "Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey is confident that Professor Snape will suffer no lasting damage, although it isn't the easiest thing to put straight. The Weasley Twins must have been paying closer attention in class than Severus ever thought, to have concocted something like that... At any rate, it's being sorted out; since it was an accident, I shouldn't expect a very severe penalty. I'll look into it this evening and will do my best to have an answer for you tomorrow."

McGonagall walked with Harry to the great hall for dinner, and it turned out she wasn't the only one intending to get a verdict for him. As he sat down, Professor Umbridge approached the Gryffindor table. " _Hem-hem!_ "

 _Now what?_ Harry wondered.

"If you will excuse me, Minerva," Umbridge said as an aside before continuing. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Frederick Weasley and Mr. George Weasley!" she called in a particularly grating soprano.

"It wasn't us!" Fred insisted.

"That business with the upstairs toilet, I mean. We didn't have a thing to do with it," George explained.

McGonagall's thin lips had pressed tight, but Harry thought it was a twitch of amusement rather than anger that flitted across them.

Umbridge, on the other hand, was all business. "The three of you will come to my office in the morning before breakfast, and we will discuss the incident in the Potions lab earlier."

Harry looked to Prof. McGonagall. She seemed a little taken aback, but one glance reminded Harry not to hope that this most professional of his teachers would argue with a colleague in front of students. "Okay," he relented, "I'll be there."

"That's what we like to hear," Umbridge said. She smiled and patted him on the shoulder in a way that made his appetite shrivel up and hide, then she and McGonagall went back to the head table.

"So what'd you do to the upstairs toilet?" Ron asked his brothers once the teachers had left.

"Nothing, like we said," George replied.

"Well then what happened up there?"

"Hanged if we know; we didn't do it," Fred said. "We're just kind of guessing that there was something."

Harry laughed; the twins could even make mischief by telling the truth! However, after being touched by Prof. Umbridge, not even Fred and George's joking was enough to erase a sneaking hint of poisoned honey from the taste of Harry's food.

* * *

"What does Umbridge think she's going to do anyway?" George wondered on the way to Umbridge's office the following morning. He and Fred were trying to keep Harry from slipping into dread and despair after he had already slept badly. "Snape can't say anything; that means we ought to be handed off to our Head of House."

"-Or the deputy Headmaster," Fred added. "Either way McGonagall, and you said she wasn't mad."

"Last I knew the 'Senior Field Minister for Education' didn't have anything to do with it."

"She's just a busybody, probably wants to give us a lecture," Harry tried.

"That's the spirit!" Fred agreed. "Just daydream 'til her mouth stops moving, then we're off to breakfast."

When the three of them entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and started across it to Umbridge's office - the twins eyed the blackboard and chalk sitting there unprotected - Harry heard voices arguing beyond the closed office door. Umbridge was immediately identifiable, but he had to come pretty close before realising that the other voice was Prof. McGonagall; close enough that her tall shadow straightened up, obviously noticing him, and she opened the door.

"Please, come in, all of you. George, Frederick, please do not tamper with your professors' equipment." Her expression was unmistakeably sober.

The twins put down Umbridge's three-chalk guideline drawing contraption and followed Harry into the office. Umbridge smiled at the three boys from her desk. McGonagall stood at the side.

"As your Head of House, I must inform the three of you..." McGonagall began.

Harry's stomach sank; her usually firm voice bordered on the mournful.

"Professor Umbridge tells me that she been able to confer with Professor Snape and also with the Headmaster, and since the incident was not malicious, the revoking of a privelege was deemed more appropriate than-"

" _Hem-hem_ ," Umbridge broke in.

A rare spark of anger crossed McGonagall's face. "Would you like a lozenge, Dolores? You've been coughing like that all morning."

"No, thank you," Umbridge said before turning to Harry and the Weasley twins. She barely even bothered to disguise her glee. "Since between the three of you, you have seen fit to give one of your instructors the, ah, _gift of flight_ ," she said, "he and I decided it would be fair that you should forfeit that privelege for yourselves."

" _We're grounded?_ " the twins burst out in unison.

"For how long?" Harry asked. He spoke as if with calm resignation; actually his mind was struggling to wrap itself around the sentence.

"Until further notice," Prof. Umbridge said sweetly.

"Come on!" Fred insisted. "What about Quidditch?"

"You can't just ground half the Gryffindor team!" George concurred.

"It is not for a student to say what a professor can and cannot do," Umbridge pointed out.

Harry was getting the distinct impression that in her mind, it wasn't for anyone at Hogwarts to say what the Senior Field Minister for Education could and could not do.

"Unfortunately," McGonagall said, "it is true that academics and discipline must come before extracurriculars. Participating in Quidditch is a privelege and, being that it depends on flying, well... I'm afraid there you have it." It obviously pained her greatly to say it; no one was a stronger supporter of Gryffindor Quidditch than their head of House, but even that took a backseat to her professional demeanor, despite her new colleague's gross lack of the same.

"In case you wish to make any further objections," Umbridge added, "I should mention that this was discussed with the Headmaster and he totally agreed."

Harry started back in disbelief. Dumbledore had agreed to this ridiculous punishment? Even for Fred and George, who had scarcely had a thing to do with it? Surely Umbridge must be lying!

McGonagall must have noticed Harry's look. "Yes, he did," she confirmed.

"I don't believe it," Harry muttered aloud without meaning to. No flying, no Quidditch, none of his favorite school activity, probably his favorite ability that Magic gave him... And this was happening with Dumbledore's blessing?

"If you attempt to make any illicit flights, you'll come to believe it soon enough," Umbridge said. "The three of you are dismissed."

Almost as soon as Harry shut the office door behind himself and the twins, he heard Prof. McGonagall's voice again and the argument they had interrupted quickly resumed.

"I'm really sorry about that," Harry told Fred and George as they went out into the hallway and headed down to breakfast despite the blow. "You two didn't even do anything..."

"Well, it was one of our Canary Cremes," George said with a surprisingly nonchalant shrug.

"But you made it before term even started. I don't think they're allowed to punish you for that," Harry realised. "You should've said something."

"What? Us take off and throw you to the evil toad woman?" Fred objected.

George sniggered. "She'll get a little of it back sometime when she goes to use that chalk thing, anyway."

"After McGonagall saw you?" Harry questioned. The last thing he wanted was to see this situation get the twins into more trouble.

"Hey, you heard all that," George said. "It'll be worth a detention just to see if she might let it slide."

"And of course we're still on to watch Filch try and figure out the 'business with the upstairs toilet'..." Fred reflected with a grin.

Harry knew better than to think that Fred and George were taking their sentence as lightly as it seemed. They'd been the Gryffindor beaters ever since he had come to school, and Quidditch was certainly a highlight of the term for them, but they had plenty of diversions for themselves and were immediately moving to adjust.

He wished he himself were so lucky. All the fun he'd had at that weekend's Quidditch practice: the playful barrel rolls, experimenting with the Snitch with no one to end the game and take it away from him... Now it curdled inside him. Given Umbridge's grin as she'd said "until further notice," Harry could just give up on all of it for the rest of the year...

"Well, look at it this way," George suggested, "you're safe when we play Ravenclaw."

"What do you mean by that?" Harry snapped, taken aback.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all..."

Could Fred and George have overheard his worries about playing against Cho? They'd just been in his head, and he'd been half the Quidditch Pitch away! He shot the twins a hot, questioning glance over his shoulder, but they just looked away from his eyes with knowing grins on their faces.

Irritated by that, Harry picked up his pace toward the Great Hall and broke away from them.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Thirteen: Wastepaper**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Twelve_

This is the first chapter of Secret Prophecy drafted entirely during NaNoWriMo 2005-so you can tell how thoroughly lost my groove has been in the interim. -_-;;; I wasn't an official rules-compliant participant (yeah, as few rules as NaNo has and I managed to break them), but decided to use the "50k words in November" exercise for a sprint on this story, especially wanting to catapult myself into the school year as I was adjusting to the transition.

With my complaints about Lavender and Parvati, I at least managed to get in the reason for Parvati's test anxiety now, and at least Lavender didn't just sit there thinking bad about Harry without saying anything to his face.

One thing about my HP fanfic, at least in first drafts: I will give the original that while they do have the trivia-packed appeal, they also have something in the way of tight construction; the gun you see on the wall in chapter one generally does go off in the end. With me, I enjoy the trivia/milieu aspect enough that it's harder for me, much less a reader, to know which of these bits is going to be important and which are there only for texture. In writing the first draft, it is kind of nice to have a lot of guns on the wall to choose from if I need them - I hadn't realised what was going to happen when I planted that Canary Creme - but on the other hand I don't know if we need to know that Dean gave Ginny a clickie-pencil and that he doesn't tend to use erasers. I had also thought up Exertincture in brainstorming for much later stuff (like book 7 later) and didn't expect it to crop up already, but wth.

And one more thing about that conversation: again picking up a worry from last time's notes, that of Harry not getting crap from his classmates as in canon, this time I got in the realisation that Seamus doesn't believe him, and that is something I'd like to play with more. I still don't see Harry's friends buying the Daily Prophet line that he's a neurotic drama monger, but... Well, logically speaking, Harry says Voldemort is back. If Voldemort is not back, this means that Harry is either mistaken - ie off his head - or he's lying. If neither of these is true, then one must logically conclude that Voldemort is in fact back. However, people don't think and feel logically always. Just because Seamus or Lavender (gad I always want to spell her name with two a's) don't think Harry's a liar or a nutjob doesn't mean they believe him, and from his point of view that might sting just as much.

Props to Hermione for finding a use for old school yearbooks besides evening up table legs; if anyone can do it, she can. In other news, I WANT one of those mushroom pizzas. T.T

And thus far I admit I've had Draco largely relegated to the peanut gallery, but hey, it's a first draft. It does bear mentioning that IMU he's ah... Well, he's the kind of Seeker who loses the Snitch in a private practice (btw, normally I know he wouldn't pass up an opportunity to confront Harry, but the "I suck, okay?" factor on that one was high enough that whining to the team captain seemed a better option). C'mon, it took seven top-of-the-line brooms to get him on; how good can he be?

I'm having great fun with the paper; and perhaps it's better, as in canon, to leave it to the imagination, but I did enjoy getting in some description of what Butterbeer tastes like. Actually Jones brand Cream Soda tastes somewhat like how I imagine it, just add butter and the "tastes good hot" aspect. Also, I know that JKR says Ginny is short for Ginevra, but I decided otherwise. Most of the Weasleys' names are so ordinary that Ginger seems more in keeping (although I admit, I'd go by "Ginny" too in that case; not that I wouldn't if my name was Ginevra...).

May have been a little early to break out the "would you like a lozenge, Dolores?" but may as well go ahead at least tentatively.

  



	13. Wastepaper

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Thirteen  
 _Wastepaper_**

"Probably Dumbledore was just worried about you, things being the way they are," Hermione guessed over breakfast; Harry and his friends were still trying to wrap their minds around the Headmaster approving Harry's loss of flying priveleges. "I mean, every year you've played Quidditch, you've been attacked by something. First year there was that bucking broom..."

"Dobby's Bludger year two, aided and abetted by Lockhart," Ron recalled. Dobby had bewitched one of the bludgers to pummel Harry mercilessly in a misguided plan to keep him from getting hurt.

"And the Dementors that wandered onto the pitch third year," Ginny added.

"Okay, I get the point," Harry grumped as he pushed his scrambled eggs around on his plate.

The morning owls were fluttering in the windows with the students' mail, and a large brown horned owl plopped down in front of Hermione with her Daily Prophet subscription. As she opened it out, Harry saw Umbridge's toad-face smiling at him from a photo, under the title "Field Minister's Report Finds Cause for Concern at Hogwarts." As if the morning weren't horrible enough...

No sooner had he settled into a scowling silence than he felt the breeze from Hedwig's wings around his head and she alighted on his shoulder with a white paper envelope in her beak. He took it and fed her a strip of bacon.

Harry turned the envelope over a few times; he had never seen anything quite like it inside Hogwarts' walls. It was smooth white Muggle paper, rather than parchment. Several of the students got letters from home on Muggle stationery, but this wasn't of that kind-it was clearly from a business and even had a glassine window in the front showing through to the printed address: "Mr. Harold Potter; Hogwarts School; Hogsmeade, Scotland." The return address was printed as well, from a "Sweepstakes Awards Clearinghouse" in Berkshire. For the first time Harry had ever seen, a student at Hogwarts was getting Muggle junk mail. "Wonderful," he grumbled.

"What is it?" Ron asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Rubbish," Harry said. "Muggle houses always get this stuff, trying to sell things or promising prizes or whatever..."

"I'll take it if you don't want it. Dad loves that kind of thing."

"I've never seen anything like that come to Hogwarts, though," Hermione said. "My parents have to send things specially through the Ministry; I don't think they let business mail through."

"Well, here it is now," Harry said. "Maybe the Dursleys submitted the address, just to hassle me..."

"I suppose they must have," she said, and turned back to her eggs and ham. "It looks odd is what I mean," she added presently, in a hushed tone. "If I were you I'd open it and see what it's about."

Harry shrugged and slit the top flap of the envelope with a butter-knife as Hedwig took off back to the owlery with another piece of bacon. Inside were all the trappings he would have expected, including a freepost reply envelope with an entry form and labels, but the letter itself, printed on cold white stock, gave him a pleasant surprise:

" Dear Mr. Potter,  
"Congratulations! Your cousin signed you up for our Inane Muggle Sweepstakes Mailing List. "

At the least, it was a letter from someone who knew the word "Muggle"! Flipping over the single leaf, Harry found the signature stamped in familiar handwriting:

" S. B. Paterson "

The "Paterson" was obviously a decoy appended to the "S. B." It was a letter from Sirius! He must have gotten hold of some Muggle junk mail and used a Protean Charm on it to conceal a letter to Harry! A quick glance at the postscript even promised that Hedwig would know where to deliver the reply envelope. Certainly the ploy would have been more effective if business letters of that sort weren't such a rarity at Hogwarts, but Harry decided to trust Sirius's own caution for now and looked at the letter with delight.

"What does it say?" Ron asked him.

"It... I was right about the Dursleys," Harry said through his smile. He folded the letter so as to conceal most of it and showed it quickly to Hermione and Ron, pointing out the first paragraph. "See, it says right there."

"I, ah... I keep forgetting how childish your cousin is," Hermione said, trying to cover up.

"I'll keep this for your Dad," Harry told Ron. He stuffed the papers back in the envelope and tucked it inside his robes before it drew any more attention. By then breakfast was nearly over and he had to wolf down his eggs.

All through History of Magic, Harry felt the envelope in his pocket too keenly to listen to Professor Binns' droning, and he just scratched doodles and snatches onto his parchment to make it look as if he were taking notes. Once class ended, he took Ron and Hermione and tried to think of a private place to read Sirius's letter during the morning break. Hermione led the way and slipped Harry and Ron into the toilet where Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a Ravenclaw girl, was bawling so loudly as to safely cover any sound they might make.

"You don't think she'll tell, do you? Myrtle, I mean." Harry tried to whisper, but he had to use his voice to be heard above her wailing.

"Well, she didn't when we were brewing potions in here second year," Ron said.

Hermione shut them into a corner stall and pulled the boys conspiratorially close. "I don't think ghosts _can_ snitch, at least not unless they're asked or they're responding to a living person somehow. Those are the rules or some such thing, like how they're not allowed to actually haunt people..."

She had tried to say it quietly, only to Harry and Ron, but Myrtle must have heard as she started howling louder still.

Reassured, Harry pulled Sirius's letter out of his robes and opened it up.

" Dear Mr. Potter,  
"Congratulations! Your cousin has signed you up for our Inane Muggle Sweepstakes Mailing List. "

"So is that an inane list for Muggles or a list for Muggles who _are_ inane?" Ron wondered.

" I understand it may be awkward for you to receive mail of this kind at your current address, but please bear with us as we try our best. As for myself, some of my associates were quite disturbed by comments made at the train station and I have since been unable to leave the office. Sadly, this means that I will be unable to meet you in person as discussed. "

"Lucius Malfoy," Harry surmised from Sirius's semi-enciphered message. "He must have recognised Sirius at the station, and they're keeping him laying low at the house..."

"I thought that guard dog' crack was fishy," Ron agreed.

"So no Hogsmeade visits," Harry translated further.

"That's probably better," Hermione said sadly.

" My dear friend is leaving on a business trip soon. I hope to accompany him as I am familiar to the clients he will be working with, and communication facilities at that location are more favorable. However, our supervisor seems resistant to the idea.

" In general, however, business remains good. The political climate for our work remains hostile, but we have managed to keep our full staff thus far. Our current major project, as you know, is classified, and thus let me simply say that it continues without incident. "

"Those are good things to hear," Hermione said. "The thing they're guarding is still safe, and no one's been hurt."

"That has to mean Lupin," Ron said, pointing to the words "my dear friend." "I wonder where he'll be off to?"

The final paragraph continued onto the back of the page:

" I will do my best to keep you informed about the status of your sweepstakes entry and other pertinent matters. Please use the enclosed envelope to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Until then, good luck in your studies. I understand the political climate is problematic for you as well, but such things can change very rapidly as circumstances change, so please bear with the situation and do your best. Your efforts will pay off in due time.

" Yours sincerely,

" S. B. Paterson

" Enclosures

" P. S. : If you wish to send a reply, simply give the enclosed envelope to the courier who delivered it. She will know what to do. "

"I'll write him back tonight," Harry said, putting the letter back in his robe-pocket.

"We'd better get to class," Hermione said. She left the stall first and signaled Harry and Ron that the way was clear before the three of them hurried out of the bathroom and headed for Flitwick's class.

* * *

Thankfully it was Sirius's letter and not the meeting with Umbridge that set the tone for the week, although Harry certainly mourned the loss of his flying privelege and had trouble taking much joy in Potions being cancelled, despite it being his least favorite class. At least it was usually his least favorite class; this term Defense with Umbridge was making it a tight race for that title.

At the end of Charms, Hermione and Neville went to Prof. Flitwick as they had planned and broached the idea of reviving the school Duelling League. Flitwick seemed cautious, but the Gryffindors had Charms in that slot again both Wednesday and Thursday, and the two Prefects discussed it with him further. It turned out his hesitation was more due to regret over the old student league folding for lack of interest - in its last two years it had only had four members, and them only a single clique of friends - and concern about the students' seriousness, not unwillingness or fear of Umbridge taking offense. By Thursday Neville and Hermione were getting him nicely warmed to the idea, and had secured him space in that week's Hogwarts X-Press to write about his sport and gauge interest.

The comment about a clique of four students who were the last holdouts made Harry curious. Following Hermione's example, he grabbed only a quick lunch before hurrying to the Library. There he found the last school yearbook before the Student Duelling League's dissolution, looked up the club picture, and sure enough there were the Marauders. Tiny Professor Flitwick, who was already white-haired in the old photo, was holding a sword twice as tall as himself. Harry was a little surprised to see that it was Remus Lupin with the champion's trophy; James Potter teasingly tried to grab it from him, Sirius Black on his other side toyed with his ponytail when he turned to resist, and Peter Pettigrew beamed at the camera. Harry stared at Pettigrew, the traitor, for some time; the look on his chubby-yet-pointed face had the appearance of real vicarious pride, but Harry refused to read it that way and kept looking until Wormtail's smile began to seem appropriately false and smug. As time for class neared, he checked that Madam Pince wasn't watching and briefly considered removing the page from the yearbook with a Severing Charm and keeping it, but he decided not to and finally put it back on the shelf.

Above and to the right, yearbooks from more than thirty years before that one caught his eye. He stared at Nineteen Forty-Two for some time before taking it down, feeling as if under a strange compulsion, and he flipped to the Houses' sections of student portraits. In the Gryffindor pages he found a younger Hagrid, too young for whiskers but already so huge that he was squeezing himself into the frame. However, that itch in his mind had not yet been satisfied. Again he made sure no one was watching him, and he leafed through further to the Slytherin portraits. Smiling back at him from the bottom left corner of a page was Tom Riddle - Lord Voldemort when he had been Harry's own age. The photo showed a handsome boy with shining black hair and dark, bright eyes. He clasped his musicianly hands and propped his chin engagingly on his knuckles; although his smile looked somehow insincere even within a matrix of camera-poses, it was nonetheless charming and lively. Even before his hideous new body, so Harry had heard, nearly no one had recognised this winsome face in Lord Voldemort when he appeared, and now not a trace of it was left in those horrible red eyes Harry had looked into, that serpentine skull of a face, the tall narrow frame draped thinly in waxy skin that was itself the color of bleached bones...

Picturing Voldemort now while looking at the photo of Tom Riddle gave Harry a chill and a sudden spasm in his arms that slammed the yearbook shut. Hurriedly he shoved it back onto the shelf, grabbed his bag, and left the library, rubbing at a slight irritation on his forehead.

Most of the time, however, passed more lightheartedly. During the same few days as the negotiations with Professor Flitwick, Professor Umbridge's guideline chalks informed a class of third-year Ravenclaws that they'd learn more about Defense by throwing parchment airplanes at each other than by heeding their teacher or textbook. Professor McGonagall couldn't venture to guess why that had happened. Ron discovered that predicting horrible fates for Dolores Umbridge pleased Professor Trelawney just as much as divining doom for himself. Mr. Filch turned five washrooms upside-down in search of fictitious mischief, by which time he was running out of places that could reasonably be called "the upstairs toilet." However, that seemed unlikely to stop him and certainly did nothing to improve his mood.

While it was a bitter confection for Harry, the silver lining of he and the Weasley twins' grounding was that the Gryffindor table came alive at mealtimes with talk about the Quidditch trials. Ron listened closely to all of it but wouldn't talk about any of his own intentions. Harry suspected that his friend was planning to try out but for whatever reason didn't care to say so, maybe to avoid looking like a vulture taking advantage of Harry's misfortune. Ginny wasn't at all shy, however, and her plans to try out as a reserve Chaser and Seeker took on added urgency. Seamus thought he might try his hand as a Beater. Harry knew already that he'd have to just wish his friends well before they left for the pitch, however; he couldn't bear to watch the team trials himself.

Late Thursday evening Angelina caught him in the common room where he was working on a letter for Sirius. Ginny sat beside him pasting the included stamps onto her notebook and onto the sweepstakes entry form which also had something to do with magazine subscriptions. Harry had decided to fill it in and send it back with his reply for the sake of the ruse.

"I really hate to ask you this, Harry," Angelina said, "and of course it's completely up to you, but... Since you're not allowed to fly, do you think maybe we could borrow your broom?"

"Wha?" Harry hastily covered up his parchment. Already he realised he should have anticipated this question, but he hadn't; he was totally unprepared.

"Well, you understand," Angelina said. "To the team captain it seems kind of silly just to leave a Firebolt sitting in a trunk in the dorm during games. Of course I know it's yours and I'd understand if you didn't want to lend it..."

"Well, no, I'd really rather not..." He fiddled with his quill; logically he agreed with Angelina, and he certainly didn't want to see the team come back from the first game of the year having lost to Slytherin while the Firebolt sat unused, but he couldn't bring himself to let it out of his hands.

"Yeah, I know Firebolts are super-expensive. I promise we'll be careful with it, though."

"It's not the money, just..." Just what? Harry wasn't sure.

But Ginny was. "Harry's broom was a present from somebody very special," she said. "I think it's sweet how he's so attached to it."

Angelina relented; she was the Quidditch Captain, but she was still a girl who seemed to understand things like that. "Okay. I just had to try. No hard feelings."

"No, none at all," Harry agreed.

"I'm putting you in for Delicious Meat Pies Quarterly' if that's okay," Ginny said, still fiddling with the sweepstakes stamps.

"Sure, I like meat pies." He uncovered the letter and started writing again as Angelina went up to her dorm.

Harry finished the letter that night; like Sirius, he tried to convey his news in vague and businesslike terms, couching his flying ban in talk of plane tickets before going on to hint about some friends' forays into the publishing industry and talks with a "charming" professor about a sports organisation that "Mr. Paterson" himself had once belonged to, if the sweepstakes entrant was not mistaken. Of course it frustrated him; he'd have loved to write openly about the Duelling League photo and ask if Lupin had really been the champion, but he held himself back. In the end Harry was terribly afraid both that he hadn't been sufficiently opaque and that Sirius wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it, but despite that he couldn't resist a postscript:

" P.S. : My friend Mr. W wants to know if yours is an Inane Sweepstakes for Muggles or a Sweepstakes for Inane Muggles. "

That night he slept with the sealed letter in the bottom of his pillowcase. The next morning after breakfast, being free from classes until lunch, he took the envelope to the owlery and gratefully fed Hedwig a few treats before sending her off with the bulging white envelope.

* * *

That afternoon contained one last pair of hurdles standing between Harry and the weekend. Even without Quidditch, a weekend was still a weekend, but first he had to get through Umbridge's class, and worse yet a detention with her.

The class itself was dull and would have been even duller if not for its constantly surprising pointlessness and stupidity, but this time the notion of reviving the Duelling League had given the students enough hope to simply stuff their objections and play along. Umbridge spent most of the double-length session padding up Slinkhard's first chapter with half-disguised yet heavyhanded reminders that casting unpleasant spells on other people was against the law under many circumstances.

Finally she made them all perform the humiliatingly ridiculous Guided Practice scene. Harry was paired up with Seamus and dully read off his lines expressing frustration with a rude shop clerk. According to the textbook, Seamus then tried to persuade him that hexing the offending employee would be a counterproductive response. Actually Seamus's pent-up mirth was constantly slipping and bursting through each line and leaving it in shreds. The script ended before resolution so that Harry was to make up his own final response, and despite the fact that none of Seamus's admonitions had been intelligible through his laughter, Harry thoughtfully decided not to jinx the clerk. Umbridge regarded him sharply with her beady little eyes, but at last seemed satisfied.

Ron, meanwhile, had rebuffed Lavender, gone on a murderous rampage, and blown up the shop. Upon overhearing that, Seamus lost control entirely. The teacher seemed to have very little idea how to respond to Ron's flight from the heavily-implied script, nor indeed how to deal with a student literally laughing his way through her class. She excused Seamus to use the bathroom, then faux-sweetly asked Ron and Lavender to do the Practice over again - not even switching their roles - and advised Ron to think more carefully this time.

On the second try he asked the clerk to marry him, and Umbridge accepted that as a successful exercise.

At last she dismissed the class for dinner, "Except for Mr. Potter; it's time for his detention." Harry remained seated as his friends filed out of the room. Ron gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, and Hermione encouragingly said "See you in the common room later." Then they left him alone with a very smug-looking Dolores Umbridge.

"Come along into the office Mr. Potter," she said in a happy sing-song voice. "I daresay we might finish our business rather quickly."

Harry hardly dared to hope for that, but he followed her into her office and again sat down in front of her meticulously neat desk.

"I at first thought that I would ask you to write lines, but since you have had a week to reflect, it would hardly be fair to punish you for something you might have thought better of already," she said, seating herself and producing a parchment from a desk drawer. She turned it right side to Harry and offered it across the desk. "If you will simply agree and sign this statement, then you can be on your way."

Harry took the parchment and read over it in silence; it was a combined retraction and confession, written in Umbridge's own mechanically regular hand. "The Undersigned" clearly stated that Voldemort's return was all a lie. Already Harry knew he couldn't sign it, but he kept reading for the sake of stalling and appearance.

 _... I also disavow any stated or implied challenge I may have made to the judgement of the Ministry of Magic regarding the evidence or conclusion in the death of Cedric Diggory'..._

At that Harry had had quite enough, and he slapped the document down on the desk. "I'll do the lines," he said flatly.

"Well it's good to see that we haven't lost our voice, in any event," Umbridge said. She tucked the confession back into her drawer and took out a large blank parchment and a quill, which she proffered to him. "This page filled on one side will be sufficient."

It seemed too easy. He took the parchment and prepared to write, and in the moment as he awaited the teacher's instructions, he noticed the unusual design of Umbridge's quill. The upper shaft of the sheeny black feather had been cut so that the quill ended in a V shape; both the V and the wider side of the vane were edged in bright crimson, and the shaft had been dyed the same color. Since Umbridge had offered it without giving him an inkpot, he had to assume it was an Ever-Ink model.

"You will write... _hem-hem!_ " she cleared her throat to announce it, " _'I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.'_ " Harry set his jaw defiantly but said nothing.

"You should be able to fit it twenty times on that parchment. Begin."

He put the nib to the parchment.

I

" _-Aah!_ " At the very moment that he wrote the first letter, he felt a sharp twinge in his wrist beneath his writing hand. Umbridge ignored his cry. He decided that it must have been merely a shudder, and he began writing again.

will

 _- **!** -_

not

- _What's going on!_ Every word brought another pain, starting at his wrist and creeping up his arm. Three times couldn't just be flukes. He stared at the quill. It was writing on the parchment in blue, but there was that violent red feather shaft... The cuff of his robes fell back enough that he could see a hint of red peeking out of it, and he withdrew his other hand from the parchment and surreptitiously brushed his cuff back. There were the words in his own handwriting, scribed in fine red lines on the inside of his wrist:

I will not

"Do we have a problem, Mr. Potter?" Umbridge asked him, her voice full of poisoned honey.

"No, but..." He had said "No" reflexively, but he couldn't go on like this... He took a deep breath. "Can I use a different quill?"

"No, you may not, Mr. Potter," Umbridge said. "If you would like a different chair, however, please feel free."

His temper sparked at her sweet-voiced taunt. In that instant, he decided he wouldn't give Umbridge the slightest satisfaction. "No, this chair is just fine," he said, and began writing again with her red quill.

Harry scribbled his way across the assigned line over and over again:

I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.  
 _I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies._

He wrote with savage speed even as each line carved itself up from his wrist to his elbow, intent on getting through it quickly, like pulling off a plaster all at once. He paused only twice, when his arm threatened to seize up entirely. In his haste he wrote larger than he should have for the expected twenty lines, and by the time he realised it he had to squash the last few repeats rather badly, but then it was finished. With his left hand he slammed the parchment down in front of her. He lifted his bag from the floor, his right arm throbbing defiantly, and rose from his chair.

"We will remain seated until we are dismissed, Mr. Potter," Umbridge said without looking up. She was poring intently over his lines.

He flopped down in the chair with his bag in his lap.

The teacher clucked her tongue. "Tch-tch. No, no, Mr. Potter, I'm afraid this won't do at all." She turned the parchment over to show it to him, and pointed out various irregularities with the tip of her wand. "See, here the dot of the i' in lies' has wandered almost across the e', here it's much too high unless you _intended_ a comma on the previous line, and here I can't find it at all. And those last few lines - terribly sloppy! No, Mr. Potter, we will simply have to do better."

She was going to make him do it over? "But you said that _that one page_ would be enough..." he protested.

Her wand-tip twitched against the parchment. " _Obliviate."_

Harry jumped back from the magic word - the same Memory Charm that Lockhart had once aimed at him - in such a panic that he tipped over his chair. It landed with a bang, painfully knocking his head, and as he disentangled himself from it and scrambled to his feet, he desperately searched his mind for any damage between the spell and the impact. _I'm Harry Potter - my best friends are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger - Sirius Black is my godfather and he's innocent - I'm in Professor Umbridge's office, she's the evil pink toad woman from the Ministry -_

And then he noticed the parchment still there on the desk, still pinned under the tip of her wand. His memory of writing those lines, of the invisible knife-tip walking up his arm, was still there, fresh and intact, and indeed a quick glance told him that the marks on his arm were still there, but the lines themselves on the parchment were gone. Umbridge had cast "Obliviate" on the page, not Harry, and indeed its "memory," the information it had contained, was now gone without a trace.

Umbridge smiled broadly at him across the pristine parchment. "It _would_ be sufficient Mr. Potter. Yes, it certainly would."

Harry looked at her smug face, then at the blank parchment. He took a deep breath, steeled himself with determination, then righted the chair and took Umbridge's quill again.

* * *

Again and again Harry filled the sheet of parchment with " _I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies._ " With every iteration he felt himself more and more set on doing just as he was writing - he was determined to frighten his schoolmates with the truth.

Now that he knew the game Umbridge was playing, he wrote slowly and carefully, and that invisible needle scribed its way up his arm with agonising slowness, but apparently she would settle for nothing less than her own precisely measured handwriting. No matter how hard he tried, Harry simply couldn't reproduce such a thing, and as the evening wore on and the sky outside the window blackened, he became even less able to do so. The knock on his head settled in as an intensely-aching lump. His arm throbbed, making his fingers feel swollen and clumsy around the quill. On the third line of one page, a spasm in his wrist streaked the g' in frighten' across two inches. Already that one was doomed, but already he knew better than to ask Umbridge to start the page over right away.

The week before, when Umbridge had assigned him this detention, she had said there would be no need for him to go to dinner, that he would take the meal in her office, but now she made no mention at all of food as the hours dragged by. Harry's stomach growled, but he determined that he would not under any circumstances plead with Umbridge to be fed. At least she didn't eat in front of him, and Harry vindictively thought, noting the way she filled her chair, that if she didn't eat as long as he didn't, then he was probably doing her a favor by abstaining.

The dark window was dotted with stars when Umbridge looked over one last attempt, erased it with a "tch-tch," and told Harry that "we" would simply have to try again next week at the same time. With cloying consideration, she gave him a note to show Mr. Filch in case he was caught in the hallway after hours on his way to bed. He took it, hefted his bag onto his shoulder, and left the Defense classroom at last.

As he walked back to Gryffindor Tower, he finally had a moment to himself to fully feel the misery the evening had produced. The blow against the floor drilled into his head. The lines chewed the tender underside of his forearm - he scarcely dared to look at how bad the cuts were by now. His stomach growled so that his entire body ached with hunger. He did encounter Mrs. Norris in the hallway. By that time he was close enough to Gryffindor Tower that he crumpled Umbridge's note and threw it at her, but it missed. The old cat sniffed at it and carried it off in her mouth, every bit as condescendingly as Umbridge would have hoped.

At last he came to the portrait of the Fat Lady. "My goodness, you're looking in a state! Are you quite all right?" she asked.

"Fire or Flood or War or Strife," Harry recited, in no mood for chitchat.

"Oh, all right..." the Fat Lady sighed, and swung open.

"Harry!" Hermione called the instant he appeared in the Common Room.

"What happened? How'd it go?" Ron questioned, hurrying over to him.

Harry didn't pause, just crossed directly to the dormitory stairs. "I don't want to talk about it. I'm going on to bed."

"That bad, eh? What'd she have you do?" Ron persisted.

"I said I was going to bed, all right? Leave me alone!" Harry snapped. He left Ron staring after him as he stormed up the stairs to his bed.

It wasn't that he really wanted to be alone, but he didn't want to answer questions, and he certainly didn't want anyone looking over his shoulder as he drew all the curtains on his bed, lit the magical lantern hanging under the canopy, and rolled back his sleeve.

I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.

It didn't look as bad as it felt: still just red lines, although now they were darker and had an unsettling hint of glisten. The inscription didn't bleed, but in prodding experimentally he found that he could squeeze drops of blood out of it. What was he to do with it now? There weren't bandages or salve in the dormitories; for that kind of thing one went to the hospital wing, but although Madam Pomfrey was always discreet, he had no desire to show her his arm.

With nothing else to do, he put on a pair of pyjamas with long, close sleeves, climbed into bed, and put out the light. It was difficult to fall asleep, especially when the thought struck and subsequently tormented him that somewhere Lee Jordan's newspaper staff was eating mushroom pizza. He could go back downstairs and to the Transfiguration classroom to have some, but then Ron and Hermione would start interrogating him about his evening again, and he still didn't want to answer any questions.

Harry felt trapped in his bed, and he pressed his face into the pillow. He wasn't sure if he was waiting to fall asleep, or waiting for morning, or more likely waiting for the marks on his arm to disappear. He knew that they would still be there when he would somehow get up and embark on the day - hopefully finding something to eat - but even despite his gnawing hunger, for now he wanted to hide himself away here in bed and hide that arm until there was nothing left on it to be asked about.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Fourteen: Hagrid Returns**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Thirteen_

Nice to have worked in the fact that Myrtle exists. Still no sign of Peeves, though...

And I managed to briefly get lost in flashback land again with the old yearbooks, but firstly, both the pictures that were dwelt upon did do something I wanted to weave in (for use in book 6 maybe, but doesn't hurt to work it in), and also I do think that a certain fascination with the past - particularly glimpses of loved ones in the past - points up an important part of Harry's character (see notes on Chapter Eight for " _your_ plot point!"). Somewhere in online fishing I stumbled across an embarassing revelation that yearbooks are generally not done in the UK, but they've been useful enough to me that they're staying here. After all just because British Muggles have better taste than that doesn't mean that British Wizards do.

I laughed myself silly writing Umbridge's class this time, particularly Ron "taking her junker" as my gamer friends might say. She really should have anticipated this...

And of course, the Cutting Quill. Kept it from canon!OotP; I've got some things I want to do with this situation. It is something I'm slightly uncomfortable with, tho, being that I'm trying to play Umbridge as evil, but evil in such a way as to at-least-maybe be a deluded attempt at heroism, so the introduction of the confession/retraction turned it into more something I could see my Umbridge doing. Saying that is ironic, though, because in ways I think my Umbridge is even more evil - especially that bit about without warning turning "one page will be sufficient" into the Sisyphus Penmanship Test. That is just pure evil; I think Voldemort would look at that and decide that this woman is sick (a fun kind of sick, he might think, but yes, definitely sick).

Moving the impact area to Harry's forearm had a few reasons; I wanted to put it somewhere that could still adversely affect his writing hand but be more concealable was the main one, and also had to do with how my mind is understanding this magical device and what it's meant for and how it works - how all of that relates doesn't totally make sense but it influenced the decision. While I have been known to facetiously refer to her as Dolores "Der Fuhrer" Umbridge, I swear to any and all available deities that I didn't realise the possible Nazi reference in inscribing someone's forearm until it was too late.

And a nice little angst-trip to tuck him into bed.

  



	14. Hagrid Returns

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Fourteen  
 _Hagrid Returns_**

Harry was still awake and heard the other fifth-year boys come up to the dorm. Once he felt light falling on his closed eyes and thought that Ron was peeking in on him, but he pretended to be asleep. Presently all the lights went out, and still he lay there feeling as if in a three-pronged caliper, pinched between his hungry belly, his savaged arm, and the bump on the back of his head.

He didn't know when he finally fell asleep, but there was no mistaking it when he woke up. The sound of the bedcurtains roused him just enough to feel hands take his shoulder and shake him firmly. "Harry! Harry wake up, look out the window!" It was Ginny's voice.

" _unngh... window wuh? goway..._ " His voice and brain were both thick with sleep; he didn't care if it _was_ snowing. Over his shoulder he heard Hermione also, shaking Ron.

"Oh, come on!" Ginny seized his arm - his right arm - and yanked him upright.

" _ **AAAAOW!**_ _Don't_ _ **do**_ _that!_ "

Ginny jumped back. The curtains on the other side of his bed were immediately thrown open. Hermione leaned over him as Ron was jumping out of bed.

"Harry, what happened! Are you okay?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, nonetheless clutching his arm.

She noticed the gesture and reached for it. "Let me see."

"No! Not now; I'll show you later. - _It's okay, I'm all right,_ " he added a little louder to forestall Dean, Seamus, or Neville getting out of bed to investigate.

"Gaugh, what time is it?" Ron asked, rubbing his eyes. The dormitory still stood in full dark.

"About four in the morning," Hermione said. "Now you two get dressed - Hagrid's back."

"Wha? Really!" Harry questioned.

"I got up early to look in on Lee before the Quidditch trials," Ginny explained. "When I looked out the window I saw a light in his cabin."

"It looks like he really is there," Hermione added. "I'll wait for you two down in the common room."

"Right." Ron started fumbling for clothes.

"Ginny, are you coming with us?" Harry asked. Usually it was just himself, Ron, and Hermione who visited Hagrid.

"No, I'm going to go ahead and see if I can lend a hand with the paper. I'll see you later!"

"Bring me back some pizza," he said as the girls hurried off.

Harry and Ron quickly dressed, and Harry took his Invisibility Cloak from his trunk. If Filch caught Ginny, helping with the paper would probably keep her out of trouble, but Harry and the others visiting Hagrid would have no such luck.

"Oy, Harry," Ron whispered as they were pulling their shoes on. "What'd Ginny do to you anyway?"

"Tell you later," he said. After a little thought, he added "It wasn't Ginny who did it."

Ron stopped short in the middle of tying his shoelaces and sat like that for a moment. " _Umbridge!_ " he hissed.

"Later!"

They hurried quietly down the stairs and met up with Hermione; Ginny had already gone, thoughtfully leaving the Fat Lady's portrait a little ajar. The three of them huddled under the Invisibility Cloak, slipped out, and closed the painting behind them. As they crossed the grounds, Harry was glad to see the light in Hagrid's hut and recognise his massive silhouette moving around inside, but he was belatedly struck with a thought and paused.

"Don't say anything to Hagrid about my arm, all right?"

"Okay, but you have to show us after," Ron insisted.

"Fine," Harry hastily agreed.

With that decided, they crept up to the cabin door and Harry knocked. Immediately they heard a body hit the inside of the door and claws scrabble on it, but they all recognised the welcoming sound of Hagrid's boarhound, Fang. Hagrid must have recognised Fang's reaction, too, as he opened the door directly. "C'mon in," he said, holding Fang back by the collar until Harry and his friends had closed the door behind them.

Even before Harry had fully thrown off the cloak, Hermione slipped out of it and gave Hagrid a hug. "I'm so glad you're back safe and sound!"

"Oh, don' you kids go worryin' 'bout me," he said, blushing through his thicket of black whiskers. "I would ha' waited 'til mornin', yeh know."

As he untucked his head and let her go, Harry noticed a bruise over one of Hagrid's eyes. "What happened to your face?" he asked.

"Long story, long story..." he said. "Things like they bin, I'm awful happy teh see all you kids in one piece, too."

Harry's arm needled him, and he tried to surreptitiously rub it against his side.

"If it's a long story, we have time," Hermione said.

"We are up pretty early, though," Ron said through a yawn. "Got some tea?"

"And something to eat?" Harry slipped. All the injuries from last night were acting up.

"Not a bit o' trouble," Hagrid said, and motioned them all to settle in at his rough wooden table. He already had the copper teakettle - an even more battered one than that Harry had seen in Lupin's pocket-tin "Castle" - on the stove, and he found some coarse bread and boiled eggs.

"What is it with you?" Ron asked as Harry took a piece of bread, not waiting to spread butter or peel an egg. "Did Umbridge even feed you?"

"No," Harry admitted between bites.

" _Why that-_ _ **!**_ " Ron managed to choke back a swearing fit for only a moment before it got through.

"Ron!" Hermione protested. "I know how you feel, but you don't want to get caught talking like that about a teacher."

"She's not a teacher!" Hagrid insisted as he brought over the teakettle. "Nothin' but Fudge's stooge, she is! Sent her here ter give Headmaster Dumbledore trouble."

"Hey, like you're telling us?" Ron said, taking a gulp of the hot tea. "You haven't been in her class."

"I wasn't saying she's really a teacher, it'd just be better to be out of the habit for when someone could get you in trouble," Hermione said.

"But what about you?" Harry asked. The longer they discussed Umbridge the more likely his detention would come up, and he was still looking at that black eye. "Things with the giants didn't go so well...?"

Hagrid's face fell so pitifully that Harry wished he hadn't said anything. "Nah... Wasn' much we could do with 'em."

"Kinda thick, huh?" Ron asked.

"Ron!" Hermione cried, then hissed at him: "Don't forget who you're talking to!"

"No, no!" Hagrid insisted, shaking his great head. "Ron's right, Giants're terrible thick, I know it! An' I am, too, I'm thick 's a post..."

He looked almost ready to cry; Hermione pinned Ron with a glare that said "Now look what you did!"

"But what happened?" Harry asked, hoping to redirect things. "You were gone for a long time, so they must have listened to you for awhile, didn't they?"

Hagrid shook his head miserably. "I should ha' known the first day it wasn' gonna work. Olympe caught on a long time before I did that they didn' really want us there, but I knew Dumbledore was dependin' on me and I jus' wanted ter keep tryin' yeh know..."

"That's certainly nothing to be ashamed of," Hermione said.

"But I insisted on stayin' until finally things got real ugly. We weren't near the thick of it or else I might not ha' got back in one piece but... Well, when we came," he said, leaning back as if really beginning the story at last, "we told 'em 'bout You-Know-Who and how bad he was, an' they jus' didn' really care. He ain't never killed any giants, and well, they got no love fer humans, I can tell yeh that righ' now."

"Dumbledore did say something to Fudge about how the Ministry took Giants' rights away," Harry recalled.

"Worse 'n that, ran 'em clear out of Britain," Hagrid said. "They're all cooped up in this place in the mountains on the continent now, 'cause the Ministry couldn' handle 'em no other way they said. Killed a lot o' Giants gettin' it done, too. Was a long time ago now, but they remember. They remember..."

"So humans did so much to them before, they didn't care about helping someone who came from humans now?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, when one o' those ruddy Death Eaters showed up, they weren't any too shy about helpin' him! But I'm gettin' ahead o' meself... So me an' Olympe - Madame Maxime, yeh know 'er - we came ter the place in the mountains where they lived, an' manners for Giants is ter bring gifts fer the Chief when yeh come teh their place, so we brought stuff, and we told 'em all we had to say. None o' the other giants cared teh give us the time o' day, but the Chief, he liked our present, so he said ter keep comin' and talkin'. Olympe didn' think it'd help, but she agreed with me ter keep tryin', so we kept bringin' presents and comin' and talkin', but it never got any better. Some of 'em thought we was from the Ministry, no matter how we tried to tell 'em no, 'cause we wanted to save humans or some such thing..."

"Like no one but the Ministry cares if people die?" Ron questioned. "It's starting to look like they're really the last ones who care..."

"I guess because we want to save society like it is now. We are kind of defending the Ministry," Hermione said.

"What happened after that?" Harry asked. "You said a Death Eater came?"

"Well, like I said, no matter how much we talked, they all thought we was from the Ministry, or that we wanted them to help humans in spite o' all the bad that had been done ter them, and we couldn' tell 'em we had a different idea. But they all liked the presents we brought, and the Chief wanted us ter keep comin'. He liked us well enough, but I don' think he cared neither, what we was sayin', he jus' liked gettin' presents, and I think the others was gettin' kinda jealous already when the messenger came from You-Know-Who. He was all human, but he went talkin' about smashin' the Ministry; he promised 'em revenge on humans if they helped him, and they liked that."

"I bet," Ron scoffed. Hermione jabbed him with her elbow hard enough to make him yelp.

"Who was the Death Eater who came?" Harry asked. "Did you recognise him?"

Hagrid shook his head. "Wasn' close enough. Might ha' even bin a 'her.' We jus' saw at a distance and heard the gist o' what they said. He got 'em so excited, we probably would ha' bin bad hurt if we'd bin any closer. Just one o' the smaller ones saw us an' chased us, an' he did tha'." He pointed to his black eye. "Mostly they all went an' attacked the chief who'd bin list'nin' ter us."

"Did they kill him?" Hermione asked, touching her mouth.

"I don' know. When they do that it depends on how much he fought back. If the big Giant will give up bein' the Chief and if he gave 'em all the stuff we'd brought, they prob'ly would ha' bin happy and not hurt him too bad, but if he fought 'em to the death, they'd do it that a way, and we was already runnin' too far teh see..."

Harry had had enough of the bread that he felt better, and he sat thoughtfully as he peeled an egg. Fang snuffled around his lap almost the say Sirius had done, and Harry smiled at that and scratched his head.. "It's like with Umbridge," he said. "The Ministry's our worst enemy. Maybe the Order ought to try to destroy it, too, then we might have more friends."

"Harry!" Ron cried. "Don't forget I've got family there!"

"I didn't mean it seriously," he said.

"It wasn't your fault. You did your best," Hermione tried to assure Hagrid. He had planted his fists in his beard and was leaning dejectedly on the table so that the wood groaned piteously and Harry had to grab the boiled eggs to keep them from rolling away. "It probably isn't fair to think you didn't do any good," she continued. "After all, you told them there were humans besides the Death Eaters who didn't want to hurt them, right?"

"I did, but I don' think they was list'nin..."

"Maybe some of them will remember it," she said. "You never know."

Hagrid gave a great sigh. "Dumbledore should ha' just sent a human," he said at last.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked him. "That doesn't make any sense."

"You saw what it was like las' year, when that Skeeter woman tol' all the humans about me," he lamented. "I got owls from all over, and they was all sayin' 'Yer mum was one o' them horrible things what killed so many humans!' I always knew that'd be what happened if'n it got out. I guess I always thought with Giants it'd be different, but they was all sayin' 'Yer da' was one o' them things what killed so many Giants!'"

"Oh, Hagrid..." Hermione rubbed his massive arm.

"I guess I jus' don' belong nowhere..."

"Don't say that!" Ron burst out immediately.

Harry was right behind him. "That's not true! You belong here with us!"

At that, Hagrid burst into a broad if teary smile, and with his great arms he reached around the table and gathered all three of them up in a warm, rough, whiskery hug. "You kids are so good ter me!" he sobbed. "Yer all jus' wonnerful!"

"It's okay! It's nothing, really!" Harry laughed awkwardly. He squirmed a little in Hagrid's arms trying to keep his injured arm from getting pinched.

They sat and chatted into the morning, and when the dawn was bright enough to see, they went outside. Hagrid surveyed the pumpkin patch and clucked over everything that had been neglected while he was gone, but he was so happy that the three students had been weeding for him the previous weekend that Harry had to duck around one of the huge pumpkins to evade another crushing hug.

At one point Hermione gazed off toward the Quidditch Pitch in the distance. "I guess they're having the Quidditch team trials," she said.

Ron gave a cry of shock and ran for the castle, presumably to get his broom.

Harry looked toward the pitch; indeed he could just see the flecks that were the players on their brooms, looking at this distance like buzzing insects above the stands. He snapped off one of the little pumpkinlets that Hagrid was culling from the vines and threw it against a fencepost hard enough to smash it in a spray of seed-mush.

"Wha's a matter?" Hagrid asked him.

"Umbridge grounded me. No flying, so no Quidditch..."

"I wonder what got into Ron," Hermione said, looking after him as he sprinted off. "He never said anything about trying out..."

Harry noted with a slightly-cheering bit of satisfaction that girls didn't have the monopoly for catching onto things unsaid.

Not long after that they gave Hagrid a final welcome home and set off back toward the castle to get there for breakfast, but walking under the Invisibility Cloak, Hermione pulled Harry off course. "You said after we visited Hagrid you'd show us that arm," she reminded him.

"Maybe we ought to wait for Ron," he suggested.

But Hermione was having none of it. She took him to a niche in the castle's outer walls, beside the large ramble of rose hedges that grew in the shadow of the Astronomy Tower. Still under the Cloak, she took Harry's arm and rolled back his sleeve to show his assigned line carved into his arm. "My goodness! Harry, what happened?"

"It looks better than it did last night," he offered lamely. Now it just showed fine scabbed-over lines, although it was still quite sore to the touch.

"What did she do to you?" Hermione demanded, undeterred.

"She made me write lines with some odd kind of quill..."

"Made you write lines in your own blood?"

"No, it didn't write in blood; it just scratched me whenever I wrote with it..."

"Harry, you _have_ to go to Madam Pomfrey!" she declared.

He bristled. "It's not that bad!"

"It doesn't _look_ that bad, but... She used a magic quill on you and you don't know what kind! It could've been poisoned or something! It could be brainwashing you!"

Harry sighed, although it was oddly refreshing to hear anyone say such a Muggle word as "brainwashing." "Look, I feel fine; I'm not poisoned. And if it was supposed to write this in my brain and make me agree with it or some such thing," he said, pointing to the sentence on his arm, "I can tell you right now it's doing a miserable job."

"But you know what I mean!" she persisted. "It's like if someone cast a hex on you that you didn't know what it was. The smart thing to do is to go to the Hospital Wing where they can _find out_ what it is and not take a risk! Besides, even if it's not poisoned, that quill has got to be illegal!"

"So it's illegal - so who do we turn Umbridge in to? The Ministry?" Harry questioned.

"Surely Dumbledore could do something."

"He's got enough problems without me crying to him like a baby!" Harry declared. "I can handle this myself."

"You're just being stubborn!" Hermione shot back. "You're too stubborn and too proud to ask for help, and you're so afraid of looking like a baby you're acting like a worse baby yet!"

"You can think that if you want!" he shot back, his temper flaring. He clasped the Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders and darted off from Hermione, leaving her standing there fully visible beside the castle wall.

"Harry!" she cried after him.

He didn't turn around. If she got caught, he thought, the Prefect and Teacher's Pet could stand to be in trouble once in awhile.

As for himself, he was determined not to be the fragile orphan everyone thought he was. He'd show Umbridge he could deal with anything she could throw at him. He'd show the Order that he could pull his weight in this fight.

* * *

It was still early for breakfast when he came into the Great Hall, and it was a strange sensation to find the huge room empty. -Almost empty. Dumbledore was already seated at the center of the head table, avidly reading the first Hogwarts X-Press of the week. Of course, the Headmaster knew all about Harry's Invisibility Cloak - had given it to him at Christmas of his First Year in fact - so after a quick check to ensure that no one else would see, Harry had no qualm taking it off in front of Dumbledore and tucking it into his pocket before crossing to the Gryffindor Table.

"Where are your friends, Harry?" The Headmaster's voice echoed strangely in the huge, empty room.

A moment's pause. "Quidditch trials."

"I was certain that the three of you would go to see Hagrid as soon as you saw him back." As he spoke he kept his eyes fixed on the newspaper.

"We did, then they went to the Quidditch trials," Harry said.

"I see." The Headmaster turned a page.

Harry was keenly aware of his own half-lie, and suddenly running off and leaving Hermione didn't seem like such a good idea. But then, there were the trials he couldn't bear to watch, because Dumbledore had agreed to ground him, and here was Dumbledore, the only other person in the room... He stopped short of sitting down and started toward the head table.

"I understand you had detention with Professor Umbridge last night," Dumbledore said. "Now I see she has you scheduled for them Friday evenings until further notice."

Harry stopped. "Yeah. She, ah... I'm just supposed to write lines, it's nothing big." He was afraid that Dumbledore would look up at him with those piercing blue eyes and know that that, too, was a lie, but the Headmaster didn't raise his face from the paper.

Relieved at that, Harry found a seat and picked up a copy for himself. This week's edition was twice as thick as the first. This time there were several puzzles of various kinds. The interview with Professor Umbridge went on for three pages, but glancing over it, Harry could tell that it would be useless. Flitwick's article about Sport Duelling, on the other hand, kept him fascinated until students began coming in from their dormitories. Breakfast was served, and soon the Quidditch players came in from the Pitch and alighted around Harry like a flock of birds, carrying with them the scent of wind and leaves, all chattering.

"Did you see that first catch, that was good!"

"And Ginny with that coin!"

"I still say she had an unfair advantage..."

Hermione plopped down right next to Harry. "You should have been there, Harry," she said sharply. Twisting the knife was clearly her intent, but he supposed he deserved it after the way he'd abandoned her. "Fred and George aren't any worse off than you and they came and helped Angelina."

"Oh, you should have seen it when they were testing people out for Seeker," Ron exulted.

Harry gamely looked up at him.

"They enchanted a knut so they could fly it around - smaller the better I guess was the idea - and Fred would control it and George would toss it up in the air and they all went after it until they got to Ginny..."

"I probably did have an unfair advantage," she said, nonetheless grinning broadly into her orange juice.

"Well George tossed the coin and she just didn't move. Everybody wondered what she was thinking; she just hovered up to him and stuck out her hand."

"He tossed it and caught it again," Ginny cut in. "Fred was flying a second coin out of his sleeve."

"You can't really blame the others for going after it, I don't think," Hermione said.

"Still, it shows a good eye to catch them at it," Ron argued. "I think Angelina made the right choice."

Harry looked up at Ginny. She beamed at him so sheepishly and joyfully that she didn't have to say a thing to tell him that she was the Gryffindors' new Seeker.

"What about Keeper, don't you think that was a good choice?" Hermione asked Ron.

"Well, I guess... I mean it's not like anybody else really tried out for it..." he said, deflating a bit.

"You're the new Keeper?" Harry asked.

"Yeah..."

"Oh, come off the glum!" Ginny insisted. "Hermione, you should have been there earlier; you missed all his good saves. That one shot of Katie's almost knocked him off his broom but he stopped it all right!"

"Won't do us much good if I fall apart ten minutes into every game," Ron grumped.

"You'll be practicing," Hermione said. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Seamus made Beater, by the way," Ron said, seeming to want to deflect the conversation away from himself. "Him and Andrew Kirke; he's a year behind us."

"Did you see my article on the paper, Harry?" Ginny asked.

"Not yet; I was reading Flitwick's bit."

"Don't you mean 'in' the paper?" Ron asked.

"No, see, I wrote an article about what everybody thought and how people reacted to last week's paper. It _was_ just about the biggest thing that happened this past week. Well, maybe not for you," she added to Harry, "but I didn't think you'd want me writing articles about that."

"No. No, I wouldn't," he agreed, and flipped through looking for Ginny's article.

* * *

Sunday was mostly taken up with homework Harry had let slide, but Monday morning everything seemed to be looking up. The pain in his arm was nearly gone, and even the scabs were starting to shed. Professor Flitwick was practically mobbed by students interested in a new Duelling League. An announcement was posted on the board about a Hogsmeade weekend just before Halloween - a ways off but something to look forward to. Dumbledore announced that Hagrid was back to teach classes, and most wonderful of all for Harry, Cho came over from the Ravenclaw table and tapped him on the shoulder.

With the Hogwarts X-Press special tribute to Cedric scheduled for the upcoming issue, she wondered if Harry was planning to contribute anything, and told him that it would mean a great deal if he did, since he and Cedric had been Hogwarts' Triwizard Champions. Last year the school had seen more than its share of squabbling about who was the "true" Hogwarts Champion and who the student body was to support, and Harry wholeheartedly agreed with Cho that his voice putting that all behind them would be a wonderful addition to the tribute that Cedric certainly deserved.

Hedwig had to nibble on his ear to pull his attention away from Cho; the owl had brought him a lumpy letter from the Sweepstakes Awards Clearinghouse, and he eagerly tore it open before even thinking to be cautious.

"Oh, I'll leave you to your mail," Cho said, heading back to her table. "About the paper, I really appreciate it!"

"Yeah, no problem," he said, waving after her.

Ron was already looking over Harry's shoulder at the letter, and his squelched laugh directed Harry's eyes to it at last.

Dear Mr. Potter,

Please tell Mr. W that ours is a Sweepstakes Mailing List wherein one has the opportunity to _win_ Inane Muggles.

At that, Harry couldn't help laughing out loud, and his example broke through Ron's restraint as well.

"Oy, Harry, you shouldn't have have sent back the form!" Ron managed between snickers. "You've got more of those than you know what to do with already!"

"Don't I know it!"

"Quiet down you two! People will wonder!" Hermione shushed them despite her own grin.

Potions was still cancelled, although Madam Pomfrey expected Professor Snape to be ready to leave the Hospital Wing on Wednesday. Still, it gave Harry and his friends the chance to run back up to the dormitory until Creatures and read Sirius's new letter.

The hard, lumpy bulk of the envelope was taken up by a present for Ginny, of all things, for use in her "journalistic career;" it was a Muggle audio cassette, and reading between the lines of its attached note, Harry gathered that it was enchanted to work like one his father James had once owned, so that it would "record, play, rewind, or advance" magically by voice command. Harry read the note over twice and found no loophole that would let him keep it himself, but he did insist on listening to it once in case there was a message on it.

He checked that no one would overhear, then told it "Play."

The little plastic reels began to turn, and Harry smiled to hear his godfather's voice: "Right, let's see if I've got it working now. Recording this at Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. Testing. Testing." It seemed the tape didn't include a letter as such; Harry guessed that even the mention of the Order was ironically a security measure meant to take advantage of the Fidelius Charm protecting the Headquarters' location, and indeed at that, Harry couldn't quite think where Sirius would have been taping this. Even if it was just a test, though, Harry still wanted to hear every moment of it, and he chuckled as the whistle of a teakettle brought an "Oh!" from Sirius and the scraping sound of a chair.

A bit of general knocking about and Sirius's voice indistinguishably low and distant - it sounded as if he were talking to himself - then another voice came muttering onto the tape with a scraping sound. " _Shameful Muggle garbage, covered in Muggle filth... My Lady never forgives such abomination in her house..._ "

"KREACHER!" Sirius shouted. "Give me that!"

His order was met with a whistle of air, a sharp thump, and a clattering noise. "Ow!" By the sound, Kreacher must have given back the tape by throwing it and hitting Sirius in the face. Now Sirius could be heard picking it up from the floor. "Agh, stop..." The reels stopped moving.

Harry wished he could listen to it over and over, but thought it too risky to keep, and of course he wouldn't want to keep it from being used as Sirius had intended. Experimentally, he said "erase" to it. The reels gave a little twitch, and when he tried it again the recording of Sirius and Kreacher was gone. Harry sighed and handed it over to Hermione to pass along.

As for the letter itself, it was rather short. Not much seemed to be happening. Lupin had left on his "business trip;" Sirius was still cooped up in the house and complained about the noisy and disagreeable "domestic help." He closed with the promise that Harry's magazines - "Please be assured in advance that any sauce stains on your _Delicious Meat Pies Quarterly_ resulted from malfunctions at the printers' and _absolutely did not_ occur in our office" - would arrive in the following odd-numbered month that was divisible by three but not an exponential thereof.

Harry boggled as he read it aloud, but Hermione immediately burst out in laughter and needed a few moments to calm down before she could explain to them why there was no such month. Ron remarked that "Mr. Paterson" must have had far too much time on his hands to come up with such a mathematical joke, and when Harry recalled the contents of the letter and the tape, he was sadly forced to agree. It also unfortunately set Hermione to babbling about Arithmancy, her favorite class, and they went out to Care of Magical Creatures listening to her expound on the fascinating properties of non-base-ten numbers. Harry had no idea what she was talking about and only caught that the word "triskaidecimal" and the number "eleventy-eight" were somehow involved, facts which served only to confuse him more.

"Care o' Magical Creatures, gather 'round here!" Hagrid called from the edge of the woods. Harry was glad to turn to the gamekeeper's first lesson of the year as he and his friends joined the group forming around a patch of turned earth and a pile of shovels.

"Got summat as I've bin wantin' ter show yeh fer a long time!"

"No more Blast-Ended Skrewts, please?" Lavender half-asked, half-pleaded.

Hagrid shook his head. "Nah, nothin' new-fangled. These'a bin here fer years an' years."

"Nothing dangerous like the hippogriffs, I hope," Pansy Parkinson remarked.

"No, no," Hagrid hastily assured the Slytherins - his teaching debut had ended with Buckbeak slashing Draco for an insult. "These things won't do no more'n bite yeh. A bite from one of 'em ain't nothin' too bad, and yer safe from that, even, jus' so long as yeh don' smell like blood or rottin' meat or such as that..."

"So better be careful, Weasley," Draco remarked as an aside.

Ron returned him a rude gesture and Hermione slapped his hand.

Hagrid surveyed the class and apparently found everyone in attendance. "All rightee now, I done coaxed 'em out to the edge of the forest, but to get 'em on over here, I need a few volunteers fer the shovels."

Malfoy noticeably shrank away from the prospect of manual labor. Harry, however, stepped straight up to take a shovel, as did Dean, Lavender, and Millicent Bulstrode from the Slytherins' side.

"Righ' there," Hagrid said, directing them to the grassless oval of turned soil. "Jus' dig that up, an' our lesson won't be able teh resist it." Judging by his grin, he was enjoying keeping his secret for now as to just what wouldn't be able to resist what. Harry pushed in the first shovel, and the volunteers started working. "It ain't buried too deep; yeh should hit it any ol' time now," Hagrid encouraged them, and indeed Millicent's shovel presently struck something in the dirt with a disgusting moist crunch.

"What was that?" Lavender recoiled.

"Ain't nothin' yeh can hurt. Keep at it!" Hagrid urged.

A few more shovelfulls began to uncover the object, which was soon revealed as fragments of a beef that had been buried recently - but had been buried long enough to look and smell thoroughly unappetising. Several girls and also Draco screwed up their faces in disgust; Lavender too, but she kept working. Only Hermione edged closer to try to get a good look into the shallow pit.

"Nothin' much ter see there," Hagrid told her. "Just give 'em a minute. Try tossin' a little o' that toward the trees; they'll be here any second now."

Harry watched Dean scoop up a slimy shovelful and throw it back toward the forest, and then he froze. Whatever Hagrid was talking about, Harry saw it; black shapes moved around in the shade of the trees, and indeed one did come forward and nose at the meat Dean had flung away. It was a glistening black horse with membranous wings folded against its back - one of the steeds that had drawn the carriages from the Hogwarts Express this year and never before. Harry watched closely as it opened a mouth lined with wolfish teeth and began eating; he heard a fascinated "Oh!" from Hermione. Now more of the animals were coming forward, following their noses to the source.

"Ho, drop the shovels now," Hagrid said, putting out a hand.

Harry and the other three let their shovels fall, just as the first of the horses came up beside Dean and leaned down into the pit they had dug.

"Aah!" Dean jumped back as its shoulder brushed him. "Something touched me!" He reached beside him and pulled back when his fingers touched its wing.

"Nothin' ter be afraid of," Hagrid announced. He lifted Dean and Lavender back across from the far side of the hole and ushered his volunteers to stand with the rest of the class as more of the black horses gathered to eat from the exhumed carcass. Now they stood in the light and Harry could get a better look; their hides were scaly, their wings ridged like birds' feet but jet black. One flapped slightly and resituated those wings, flashing lacy black membranes between the fingers. Their feet ended in unmistakeable fetlocks and hooves, but how could these be horses of any kind? One tossed its mane and shook its tail, and the strands were too wide and flat to be hairs but hung in the air for a moment like feathers - they _were_ feathers, long, thin, and iridescent raven-black. One on the far side of the pit raised its head and regarded the students with garnet eyes, chewing at a torn-off strip of meat that dangled from its mouth. At this, several students gasped. Harry didn't think its face was all that scary...

"All right now," Hagrid said, still grinning. "Can anybody see 'em?"

It struck Harry as an odd question, but he put up his hand. Hermione squinted uncomfortably toward the animals, apparently not seeing them and wondering if she should be. As Harry looked around, he was surprised to see no one else raising their hand, until finally Neville offered a diffident wave. "Um, I can, I think."

A few Slytherins scoffed. "You _think_?" Malfoy questioned.

"Well, I can see them just a little," Neville defended meekly. "Not like I could see them Second Year..."

"Second Year?" Harry questioned.

"The first time we rode the carriages."

At that, Harry was thoroughly confused, but Hermione took a breath as if everything had just fallen into place. "Oh, they're Thestrals!" she exclaimed. "I read about them in the Scamander book! You can only see them if-" She stopped suddenly and gave Harry a strange look.

"Tha's right!" Hagrid exulted at last. "These here are some o' Hogwarts' very own herd of Thestrals. They bin here even longer than I bin Keeper of Keys and Grounds and bin takin' care of 'em, and they always pull the carriages up from the station. It ain't nothin' strange if yeh never knew it, though. See, the thing of Thestrals is... well..." He paused. His enthusiasm flagged for a moment, and he spit out the next sentence all at once. "Yeh can only see 'em if yeh've seen somebody die."

The explanation hit Harry like a bucket of cold water. Just a moment ago he'd been admiring the black horses, and now suddenly to think that it was Cedric's murder that was letting him do so, where they had never been visible to him before. But then, hadn't he seen his parents die when he was a baby...?

"So, er... That is, well..." Hagrid hemmed and hawed. "Don't wanna pry yeh know, but if yeh don' mind me askin'..." He wasn't looking at Harry, only at Neville. No one needed to ask why Harry could see them, as was obvious by the uncomfortable glances they gave him.

"My grandpa," Neville said steadily. "He'd been sick for a long time, and me and Gran were there in St. Mungo's when he passed away."

"An' when was this?" Hagrid asked him. "How old were yeh?"

"Um... Nine I think. It was right around the Christmas before the Christmas before I came to school."

"Mm." Hagrid stroked his beard. "Tha's a long time. It kinda fades, see, the longer yeh go after it happens. I'd say yer pretty sharp of eyes if yeh can still make 'em out."

Neville made a strange little squeak, as if bottling up a word or a laugh in his chest.

Hagrid went on to describe the Thestrals' care and habits, explaining that they were mainly carrion eaters and were especially attracted to dead things that had been buried and then dug up - grave robberies in other words, Harry thought, and by his classmates' looks of revulsion he clearly wasn't the only one. Hagrid looked a little confused at the students' misgivings. It certainly wasn't with relish that he described the Thestrals' more macabre aspects, but he clearly adored them anyway and didn't see why everyone else shouldn't feel the same.

Professor Grubbly-Plank's start-of-term safety lecture came in useful when Hagrid at last got the students interacting with the Thestrals and insisted that they could be ridden. Most of the class blundered around trying to find, let alone mount, an animal they couldn't see, and Hagrid set about trying to help them; the Thestrals were apparently visible to him, a fact that Harry chose not to pry into. Neville helped the other Gryffindors locate theirs and Hagrid was left mostly helping the Slytherins, with Draco holding back as his cronies managed to look utterly foolish, even to Harry, who could see the steed they were trying to manage.

Harry himself took one of the Thestrals and tried to subtly hide behind it, although the animal seemed overly interested in his hair. The fact that he was the only student able to see them clearly now made him thoroughly uncomfortable, and indeed the others must find it disturbing also; they looked over at him occasionally but didn't say anything or ask him for help until Hermione finally came over to him, with Ron following behind her.

"Have you got one, Harry?" she asked him, softly enough not to direct a spotlight onto him.

"Yeah..."

"What does it look like?"

Before he could describe it, the rest of the class made a kind of curious cheer and Hagrid announced "There yeh go!" They had managed to get Parvati onto a Thestral's back front-side-to.

"Geez, that looks funny," Ron said. To him it must just look like Parvati with her legs oddly bent hovering in the air.

To Harry, seeing her perched on the back of what looked like a horse crossed with a bat and a jet black snake, it still looked funny, but he couldn't look so closely because his own Thestral was insistently nuzzling him in the forehead. "Stop that, you."

His friends turned back to him. "I can see it pushing your hair," Hermione said.

"Well, come here if you want to know what it looks like," he told her, and pointed toward the back of its neck where she could feel the scaly skin and the fine mane-feathers. "Put your hand right there."

With Harry guiding her, she ran her hands over as much of the Thestral as she dared and asked him constant questions about its color and general appearance. "So are the eyes a bright red, or more dark, would you say?"

"I don't think that's going to be on the test," Ron pointed out, still hanging back.

"I just want to know!" Hermione insisted. "It makes me so curious to have it right here - I wish I could see it!"

Ron caught Harry's eyes in an awkward pause, to which Hermione seemed oblivious. "No, you don't," Ron said finally.

She looked up at him, noticed Harry, and went red. "Well... You know what I mean..." she breathed.

"The eyes are kind of a wine-red," Harry said.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Fifteen: Educational Emergency**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Eleven_

And once again Harry wraps the chapter steeped in angst. Poor kid; I feel a bit guilty... (Will have to make it a point not to do that next time...)

Been a few chapters since I let him read anyone's mind, too; must make a note to get in one of those soon...

This one accounted for at least some of the probably-usual Mid-NaNoWriMo slump and there was kind of an attack of the "Waah, this chapter sucks!" But must carry on. First drafts can suck all they want as long as they get written...

I'm hoping I did a decent job with Hagrid's dialect.

  



	15. Educational Emergency

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Fifteen  
 _Educational Emergency_**

Strangely, the Head Table was empty at lunch. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Umbridge, and a few other teachers were missing, and Professor McGonagall's face looked even sterner than usual in Transfiguration that afternoon. Whatever the reason for her mood, it caused her some trouble in demonstrating the day's teapot-into-rooster project, but she remained firm and fair as ever and treated the students just the same.

When the students gathered again for dinner, all the Professors were once again present, but the food was not. Harry was just beginning to wonder about it when Dumbledore stood and addressed the great hall. "It may not have looked it from where you all are sitting," he announced. "But this has been an historic day in the history of this historic institution, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For further details on these historic events, I will now yield the floor to-"

The bottom fell out of Harry's chest even before he said the name.

"-Our esteemed Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and Senior Field Minister for Education, Madam Dolores Umbridge."

The student body had fallen into befuddled silence, except Ginny, who pulled Sirius's present out of her pocket and whispered "record" to it. Harry saw the tape-reels begin to whir slowly as she tucked it back; would it really record from in there?

Umbridge unrolled a twin of the dreaded scroll from the start-of-term feast. "I have here an announcement to make on behalf of the Ministry of Magic," she said. "In light of concerns raised by the Field Minister's Interim Report, the Ministry hereby declares a State of Educational Emergency. While the said emergency persists, various emergency measures are to be in effect at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to be overseen by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, a title hereby granted to the Field Minister of Education for the duration of the State of Educational Emergency and which may be delegated at her discretion. The exact nature of emergency measures will be announced throughout the emergency period; notices will be posted for the benefit of Hogwarts students and staff." Surprisingly, she stopped at that and rolled up the scroll.

"Short and to the point," Dumbledore said as Umbridge sat back down, "but I believe it's certainly given us all something to digest. Now for the bit that fills the stomach!" With a clap of the Headmaster's hands, dinner was served at last.

But the announcement already felt to Harry like "the bit that fills the stomach." He picked at his baked chicken slowly, trying to work through it. Many of his classmates seemed to have let Umbridge's announcement breeze by, but the more Harry thought about it, the more alarmed he became. The Ministry was declaring an "Educational Emergency"? He was sure that Dumbledore's worrying of the word "historic" had been a joking jab at Umbridge's scroll, but the Ministry parroting "Emergency... Emergency..." gave him a chill. Special measures to be announced from now until the Ministry decided the "emergency" was past? Umbridge overseeing those measures as "High Inquisitor"? Unless Harry was mistaken, Umbridge had just been tapped to practically run the school!

"Hermione, do you know anything about this Emergency business?" Harry asked her desperately. "Has there been anything about it in the paper?"

"No, not that I've seen," she said. "I don't like it, though... I want to see what the Daily Prophet says about this in the morning..."

"They'll say it's the best idea ever! Duh!" Ron snapped, but his anger was clearly not directed at his friends.

"If they don't mention it at all, it'll scare me even more..." Hermione said.

She had forgotten her food and fallen to toying numbly with her fork, but then, Harry realised, he was doing the same.

* * *

After dinner, the Gryffindors went up to the dorm. Not only Hermione, but also Parvati, Lee, and several of their other housemates seized an opportunity to hear Umbridge's announcement again and analyse it further when Ginny produced Sirius's cassette. She commanded it to "play," and indeed it played back the new High Inquisitor's comments just as clearly as if Umbridge were there in the Gryffindor common room speaking.

Every repeat of the announcement struck Harry more as more disturbing than the one before, and at last he fell to distracting himself with the recorder itself. Its enchantments, Harry thought, showed a great deal of skill and cleverness on his godfather's part. There was no need to "rewind" to restart the recording from the beginning once it had played all the way through, and although the reels turned whenever it operated, neither one ever ran out of tape. Noticing it all made him feel rather proud of Sirius, but also a bit jealous of Ginny as the device made her the center of attention.

Asking Sirius to make him one like it was the furthest thing from his mind, however, when he thought of his godfather's letters. Not even daring to let them leave his person, he kept them both in the pockets of his robes until he went to bed, and he slept with them in his pyjamas.

On the way to breakfast in the morning, a crowd of students had already gathered around the announcement board. Harry and his friends wedged their way close enough to it to see what was written:

"Be it known henceforth:

"In keeping with the State of Educational Emergency, the  
following measures are in effect until further notice:

"1) Persons wishing to form Clubs, Organisations, and similar  
groups consisting of three (3) or more students or two (2) or  
more students plus one (1) or more staff members meeting on  
a regular and/or prearranged basis must apply to the Senior Field  
Minister for Education for Organisational Dispensation."

"Does this mean we can't study in the library after dinner like always?" wondered one of a nearby group of young Ravenclaw girls.

"Well, I guess it is 'regular' and 'prearranged'..." another said worriedly. "But we're not really 'forming' it, are we?"

Fred and George Weasley, leaning in to peer over Harry's two shoulders, had a different view: "Oh, sweet! It takes the Senior Field Minister's permission to have us both in detention now!"

"Yup, detentions are 'prearranged,' and I think we've got 'regular' in the bag."

"I doubt Umbridge's permission will be too hard to get for that," Ron reminded them.

"Yeah, but we'll bet like Kaana just won't bother," Fred said.

"You _know_ this one's to snub Flitwick too, plus she's already been into it with McGonagall," George pointed out and whistled. "Boy, if I could pick two teachers _not_ to have mad at me..."

"Well, one would be Snape just for the sheer novelty of it, but other than him..."

Harry shook his head and almost chuckled at the twins milking the unintended but quite likely results of the new rule, but when he stretched to read further the second Emergency Measure blasted the first from his mind:

"2) Mail may be monitored to assure student safety".

"Yeah, 'safety.' Sure," Ron echoed cynically.

But Harry was stuck on the first four words: _Mail may be monitored._

A snap and a flash of light startled him, and he turned to find Colin Creevey there with his camera. "Can't hurt to have," he said with an apologetic shrug.

"Ooh, good idea!" Ginny agreed; she had been scribbling in her "plucky reporter" notes. "So much for my owl to Tonks, though. I wanted to see what the Aurors think about our Defense textbook."

Several people liked that idea, and as conversation burst out around Ginny, Harry crossed his arms to surreptitiously squeeze Sirius's letters against his chest. "Let's go," he said, and Hermione and Ron followed him to the table.

The announcement already made everyone intensely conscious of the mail as the owls came in. Draco Malfoy's great eagle owl brought him his usual generous package of treats from his parents; probably Umbridge wouldn't molest that. Parvati got a package as she had several times before, but this time Harry noticed it emblazoned "Owl-Post OWLs Prep." Harry himself was for once relieved to get nothing, although letters did arrive for Ron and Ginny - from Percy. Surely he had nothing to fear from Umbridge's sweeps, either, but Ron tore the envelope in four pieces and threw it away without opening it, and Harry didn't see Ginny open hers, either.

For Hermione, there was only her usual Daily Prophet, but when she unrolled it, she gasped and turned white, and she squashed her marmalade-topped muffin with the paper as she leaned over it staring.

"What is it?" Ron asked. "Can the High Inquisitor order summary executions or something?"

"No, no, it's... Harry, I think you'd better look at this."

"What?"

Hermione handed him the newspaper. "I don't think she waited."

As Harry took it, he immediately saw what she meant and didn't even notice the headline. There, in a lower corner of the front page:

"BLACK BACK IN BRITAIN, SAYS MINISTRY SOURCE

"An unnamed source at the Ministry of Magic told the Prophet Monday that 'compelling evidence' places fugitive Sirius Black, convicted of the murder of Peter Pettigrew (Order of Merlin 1st Class, posthumous) as well as numerous Muggles, once again in Britain, where he was previously believed to have fled the country.

"Our reporter asked if this was a reason for the just-declared State of Educational Emergency, as Black haunted Hogwarts following his escape and attempted to attack Harry Potter, but the Ministry source denied that this was the case. 'After all, Potter now maintains Black's innocence,' the Prophet was told. 'Why should he want to harm his only defender? It's worth wondering if his interest in Potter was ever what we thought it was.'"

Ron read over Harry's shoulder, then gently pried the paper from his friend's hands and folded it away. "Deep breaths, mate. Keep it together. She's right there where she can see you." He nodded toward the head table, where Umbridge was looking too smug to notice Harry's distress.

He gripped the edge of the table and finally took a long draught of milk to steady himself, but it was still too much... "I... I forgot some Charms homework," he lied firmly. "I'll see you later."

"Hurry up with it," Hermione called after him as he rose from the table and hurried away, but she said it in a tone one would more usually use for "good luck."

Once out of sight from the great hall, Harry broke into a run and dashed up to the Gryffindor common room and collapsed to a seat on the hearth rug; the fire was already burning. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then took Sirius's letters out of his robes. Before he even dared to put them in the fireplace - in case the Floo was being checked too - he tried Umbridge's trick of casting Obliviate on the papers, and indeed it wiped them clean, then he crumpled them and threw them into the fire. He reserved only the freepost envelope and reply card from the most recent letter and found a quill and ink in his bag. With a deep breath and a trembling hand he wrote on the card:

"I am not interested in your sweepstakes.  
Do not send anymore mail to this address  
or else legal action WILL be taken."

He stared at it as long as he could bear to, then stuffed it in the envelope and sealed it. He didn't know if even that message would be safe, but what could he do?

There was no reason not to cut History of Magic that morning; Hermione could tell him what had been covered better than Binns could. He just sat there with his forehead on his hand, watching the fire consume the white paper and hoping that somehow he could be ready in time for Charms.

* * *

At first, Harry was shocked at how unaffected his classmates were by Umbridge's new title and powers, but within days he noticed that an odd hush had fallen over the school. Students were quieter in the hallways, as if afraid of being overheard by the High Inquisitor. Having the ability threatened inspired more of them to write home than ever before, and they kept the Educational Field Ministers staffing the owlery busy. With them there, however, Harry was at a loss for how to send the warning card to Sirius, and he kept it in his pocket and slept with it in his pillowcase.

As for the staff, Dumbledore seemed perfectly unruffled, although McGonagall's sterner-than-usual expression never quite faded away. Flitwick of course was dejected at his Student Duelling League being shot down again before even getting started. Filch, on the other hand, responded with rare high spirits and was heard muttering brightly about "maybe finally some _discipline_ around here!" All the students knew and dreaded his hopes for the "Emergency Measures."

When Professor Snape was back in Potions on Thursday - wearing an all-concealing hooded robe amid rumors of feather-plucking sessions with Madam Pomfrey - he had other things at the forefront of his mind. Citing the accident, he made Harry throw out every drop of his Catalytical Potion and offered him no opportunity to make up the lost work. Left without the catalyst to test the strength of ingredients for that day's project, Harry could only look at what Hermione was doing and make guesses, and Snape then proceeded to use him as an object lesson in why one should not attempt to eyeball the heart of moke in a Micronising Potion. Hermione had to use a thick magnifying lens to find him between two stones in the Potions Dungeon floor and help him out of the crevice with the point of a quill so that Snape could douse him with the antidote and return him to normal - Malfoy and his friends laughing all the time, of course.

The following day was Defense, and Umbridge, with her new High Inquisitor's badge, acted so pleased with herself that she didn't even see a need to give reasons for House Point penalties. Ron lost twenty when his Guided Practice again ended in carnage, and Seamus even more when he proved helpless to stop himself laughing at Ron's performance.

When class was finished and it was again time for Harry's detention, Umbridge shrilly called him back from the door of the side office. It was too small to support all the critical duties of the Senior Field Minister and High Inquisitor during the Educational Emergency, she said, and she led him out of the classroom and to the Hogwarts Trophy Room, of all places. Her desk had been set up there - at least Harry thought it was the same desk; she kept it too clean to be distinguishable - as well as various other tables, files, and devices. Again she sat Harry down in front of her desk, and she offered him first the same confession, then, when he refused to sign it, the same blank parchment, the same V-ended black-and-red quill, and the same line to copy: "I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies."

By the time he had written it ten times, the cuts on Harry's arm throbbed as badly as they had when he'd gotten back to the dorm the previous Friday night. He tried writing it as slowly as possible, pausing between each letter, but Umbridge sharply insisted: "I don't see your quill _moving_ , Mr. Potter." Again, also, no mention was made of food as the hours wore on, but Harry hardly thought about that this time as he clenched his jaw and wrote with the Cutting Quill.

Again, Umbridge Obliviated every page of lines he handed her and insisted that Harry do it again, and this time his handwriting deteriorated even more terribly the longer he continued. By the time she dismissed him, his lines were looking like nursery scrawl and messily overlapping each other to get Umbridge's required twenty repeats.

But finally she let him go with his hall pass, and he made his way back to Gryffindor tower. As soon as he said the password and the Fat Lady's portrait opened, Hermione ran to meet him and took his bag for him. "Ron's upstairs already," she said softly as she ushered him across the common room and followed him up the stairs to his dorm. "We brought you back some stew from dinner, and Ginny fetched some pizza from the newspaper, too."

She threw the curtains of Harry's bed open for him, releasing a little bell that had been Sticking Charmed to the edges and now jingled loudly as it hit the floor. Ron leapt up from his own bed and looked out at the sound. "How'd it go? How do you feel?"

"It went just the same as last time," Harry told him with measured words as he sat down.

Hermione handed him some pizza for his left hand and reached for his right; he drew back. "Let me see it!" she insisted.

He gasped through his teeth as she caught hold of his wrist and rolled back his sleeve. The words were written on his arm darker than ever; the lines were wider now to reveal the glisten of blood.

 _**I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.** _

"Your skin feels hot," Hermione said. She pressed her fingers near the wound, making his arm throb and squeezing the blood in the scratches closer to the surface.

"Don't touch it!" he hissed.

"Mate, that looks awful!" Ron breathed. "Hospital Wing sounds like a good idea to me."

"I really think you should," Hermione concurred.

"No!" Harry dug in his heels.

"Well, you can't just keep doing this!" she insisted.

"You can't let Umbridge get away with it!" Ron snapped.

"I'm not letting her 'get away with it,'" he shot back, then struggled to explain himself. "It's just... Well, raising a big fight with Dumbledore is probably just what she wants!"

"If so, I say let her take her chances!" Ron argued.

"I can handle it!" Harry declared. "I'm not going to drag Dumbledore or McGonagall or whoever into it, and if you try, I'll tell them you're lying!"

"Harry!" Hermione protested.

"Just... just promise me you won't drag them into it," he said.

They stared at him for a moment. "Hey, it's _your_ Snitch hand; you do what you want," Ron said with dark resignation, and he flopped back down in his bed.

Harry then turned to Hermione, who held back for several moments but at last gave him a soft "All right."

Suddenly he heard the door open, and Fred and George came into the room. "Hey," George called, "what kind of party are you guys having up-?"

Harry tried to pull his sleeve down, but the twinge it gave him slowed him up and he was too late. The twins' smiles fell and they blinked at his arm.

Fred at last found his voice. "Oy."

* * *

Before the weekend was over, all of Gryffindor Tower knew about Harry's injury. It pained him at every movement, so he spent Saturday morning in bed while Ron and Ginny went to Quidditch Practice. Hermione stayed behind and fussed over him; she fetched him porridge from the kitchen, apparently even putting aside any polemics to the house-elves for the moment, and he almost had to insist that she refrain from spoonfeeding him.

Even before breakfast was done, he was having other visitors. Parvati and Neville joined forces with Hermione, and he had only just managed to talk them out of asking Madam Pomfrey for salve without letting on what it was for - too awkward, too many questions - when Ron and Ginny got back.

Ginny proudly announced that her brother had made a very strong showing as Keeper in practice that morning, then she sat on the edge of Harry's bed and read the new Hogwarts X-Press issue aloud for him. There were of course reactions to the "Educational Emergency" declaration, although no one really knew what to make of it just yet. Most of this issue was devoted to the special tribute for Cedric, which included all sorts of contributions: anecdotes, poetry, pictures, and even a bit of sheet music from a second-year Hufflepuff whom Cedric had taken time out from classes and the Triwizard Tournament to give lessons on the pipe-organ to. Harry blushed as Ginny read his own mercifully-short essay, but then she went on to read a poem Cho had written, and Harry thought it very lovely, albeit terribly sad.

As the day wore on it seemed all his housemates came to look in on him with help, advice, and so many questions he couldn't keep straight whose were whose. Everyone wanted to know one detail or another. "How many times did she make you do the parchment?" "What did the quill look like?" "The trophy room! Tell me you're kidding!"

Everyone had ideas about what to do, also. The Weasley Twins absorbed his answers to everyone's questions, surely for use in planning revenge on Umbridge. Somehow medicine should be gotten for the wound, surely, but the Hospital Wing was out as a source, and raiding Professor Snape's potion supplies was an even less inviting option. With several more Fridays ahead before the first Hogsmeade weekend, shops in the village were only a last contingency, and Harry and Ron seriously doubted that an Owl-post order to Ludmilla Healy's would get through Umbridge's mail checks. Nonetheless, when Harry finally ventured out for dinner, Ginny did pass him carrying a jingly envelope, and she darted away down the hall before he could stop her.

Sunday his arm was still sore, and Hermione let him rest it by transcribing his homework for him; on some of the harder questions, he couldn't resist the temptation to take advantage of the situation and try wheedling answers out of her. While she firmly refused to write anything he didn't tell her himself, he knew to stop and "discuss" an answer with her if she shrugged before copying it down.

It was still sore even on Monday morning, but not so badly as to keep him from taking notes in Potions, where he learned that in Thursday's lab, he would once again be at a miserable disadvantage. Maybe post-ordered Catalytical Potion could get through the mail checks, although if Ginny had indeed sent off an order for Healy's salve, it never arrived.

Every morning, Harry desperately watched the owls come in, dreading the sight of his own Hedwig and another letter from Sirius - but then, if Sirius _had_ sent one, Umbridge's mail checkers would probably sift it out and Harry would never be the wiser. The last freepost envelope with the card inside sat heavily in his pocket under his robes; he tried to tell himself that surely Sirius saw the Daily Prophet, surely Ron's parents would see it and show it to him or at least warn him, but Harry could never put his mind to rest because there was no way for him to _know_.

A few people in the school might. Headmaster Dumbledore of course was the leader of the Order of the Phoenix and so surely knew how things were with Sirius. Professor Snape was a member of the Order as well, but even if Harry had been fully sure he trusted Snape - which he had never in all his years at Hogwarts been - he was the less approachable of the two.

Tuesday morning when Harry made up his bed, he surreptitiously spread his Invisibility Cloak under the blankets, and that night, he at last waited until all his housemates were asleep, took the note to Sirius, and wrapped himself in the cloak before slipping out of bed. He crept along the hallways until he came to the Headmaster's Tower, and he wedged himself close beside the gargoyle that guarded the door to Dumbledore's office.

"I need to see the Headmaster," he whispered to it.

It stood there in stony silence. He knew that it could talk, but now it said nothing even as he waited until his legs ached with fatigue and he was in danger of falling asleep where he stood. Finally he gave up and went back to bed, but he left the cloak in his bedcoverings and resolved to try again.

Wednesday he slipped away after Astronomy only to get the same response as the night before, and on Thursday he thought that if he was ignored a third time then he would take the hint, although he couldn't imagine why the Headmaster would turn him away at a time like this. Surely Dumbledore could understand how worried he was about Sirius, about Umbridge's Educational Emergency powers, about _everything_. Lupin had told him that the adults had their reasons for keeping him in the dark, but Harry couldn't imagine any possible reason that would justify this complete silent treatment.

He waited some time in the dark beside the gargoyle. He had just decided to count to one hundred and then leave when it silently edged to one side, making a gap just wide enough for Harry to slip past. Once he was through, the gargoyle slid shut again, and he ascended the stairs in the quiet darkness.

When he came into the office itself, the heavy curtains were all drawn over the tall windows, and the only light was a single lamp on the desk, casting a pool of warm amber glow around the middle of the room. Dumbledore was still in his fine robes from that day, although his flowing silver hair was uncovered as he fiddled with something in a tall cupboard; once again his back was turned.

Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, took one flap up from his perch and swooped in a close loop around Harry before returning to it. Along the way he shed three feathers, bits of ruby fluff that blew about the floor as Harry followed Fawkes back to the perch and stroked him. He seemed to sit more droopingly than Harry last remembered, and he stopped stroking after another of Fawkes' feathers came off in his hand.

"Welcome, Harry," Dumbledore said. From this angle, Harry could glimpse the object that Dumbledore had been working with; it was his Pensieve, where thoughts could be placed and stirred and sorted. He closed it up in the cupboard and began to turn around toward Harry, but then seemed to change his mind and headed toward a bookshelf instead. "I apologise if I am unable to receive you properly. Recent events have left me at a bit of a disadvantage. Now, what can I help you with?"

With Harry no longer petting him, Fawkes twittered and rubbed his head against Harry's pyjamas.

"I had a note for Sirius," Harry said. "I don't really have a way to send it to him..."

"He knows not to write to you anymore or to try contacting you through the Floo," Dumbledore said, "if that's what you wanted to tell him."

"Yeah..." Harry took the freepost envelope out of his pocket and set it on Fawkes' perch. That did make it a moot point, but he felt strange. He certainly had never wanted to say to Sirius "I am not interested ... Don't send anymore mail," but not having his own note delivered came as a disappointment rather than a relief, for no reason that he could understand.

"I had wondered if perhaps you had some concern with Madam Umbridge," Dumbledore said, leafing through a book off his shelves.

"No," Harry said hastily. "That is, I still don't know about this 'Educational Emergency' business..."

"I daresay the Emergency is everything _but_ education," the Headmaster said.

"And of course I'm still grounded," Harry continued. He tried to make an indirect question of the remark.

But Dumbledore didn't acknowledge it. "And you're still having regular detentions with her," he said.

Harry didn't reply. Fawkes looked at him questioningly.

"Dolores is a difficult challenge, more difficult even than Voldemort in some respects," Dumbledore said. "I have been trying to manage her a bit delicately, and I do understand how it might look from your viewpoint as a student. However, Harry, I would not want you to hesitate in coming to me if she is causing you any trouble. Putting a stop to her actions may be a complex task, but there is nothing complex in my need to know about them. Whatever she may be doing," he repeated, "I want to _know_."

Harry stayed quiet for a moment. He still didn't want to mention his arm; if he did, he could now see that Dumbledore was sure to get himself involved over it in a way that could only cause him trouble in these "complex" attempts to deal with the Ministry... "She's not doing anything, really," he said. "She's just a bad teacher with a worthless book." Again, he feared that Dumbledore would turn around with his kindly yet mercilessly insightful eyes and see through the lie, but he did not.

"How is Sirius?" Harry asked, hoping to change the subject.

"Safe and well," Dumbledore said.

With that, it struck Harry fully the opportunity of being here talking to Dumbledore, to someone who knew all about what the Order was doing and about the larger fight that Harry couldn't see from here in school. "He said Lupin was going on a 'business trip'; where?"

"...A place where we may hopefully find some allies."

In fact, Harry thought, no reason not to try... "What is it that the Order's guarding? What happened to Dedalus Diggle?"

The Headmaster raised his head and absentmindedly closed the book in his hands, but he did not turn around. "The answers to those two questions are very much intertwined," he said to the bookshelf. "Dedalus is in the best possible hands at St. Mungos, and with regard to what it is that we are guarding, I understand that Sirius has already discussed the matter with you. On that point I must respect his judgement as your godfather... in both senses of the word."

The answer was only what Harry had expected, and he was struck instead by the gesture. He had already noticed; at the Wizengamot hearing, Dumbledore had never looked at him. When he had encountered him in the great hall, he had kept his eyes on a copy of the Hogwarts X-Press. Even when he had opened the door of the Black House's kitchen and found Harry there on the step, Dumbledore had immediately looked away, but in this moment more than ever, his failure to meet Harry's eyes seemed wildly unnatural.

Fawkes gave a questioning chirp as Harry left him and walked slowly toward his owner. His mind asked the question over and over, but he couldn't quite get his mouth around it, it seemed so strange. _Why won't you turn around? Why won't you look at me?_

"It's very late, Harry," Albus said all at once. "I will be sure to tell Sirius about your concern, but for now I think that we should both be getting to bed." With that he crossed to a side door, swept through it, and shut it behind him, leaving Harry and Fawkes alone in his office.

At that, Harry was more disturbed than ever by the question still looping his mind. _Why won't he look at me?_ But for now there was nothing more to do about it, and Fawkes saw him off with a single breath of low, lyrical song.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Sixteen: Finding Gaps**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Fifteen_

This chapter was born more from redistributing than production. I moved up some material that was originally drafted as chapter 14, moved back some material that was originally drafted here, and whoomp there it is. Shortest chapter in awhile I think, but I won't be too worried until I get one shorter than chapter 2 (about 3500 words), and not even then if the content seems to work well with breaks there...

I fear I might be underplaying the whole High Inquisitor business, but it also seems really realistic for the initial response to just be business as usual. It'll get more disturbing through the next chapter and begin to inspire more of a backlash.

In the pathetically long time between drafting and polishing this, it also developed that in my HP universe, Fred and George Weasley are not quite as alike as they seem: their behavior is very similar-made even more similar by the cohesion between them-but in terms of underlying motivation, Fred is more a rebel and trickster type who likes to needle people and shake up business as usual, where George has a more sociable desire to amuse and impress people. So in revising that can be a guide deciding which of them has which line of dialogue, where originally things were assigned between them more randomly.

  



	16. Finding Gaps

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Sixteen  
 _Finding Gaps_**

Harry didn't let on to his friends that he had gone to see the Headmaster, least of all that Dumbledore had actually requested to be told if Umbridge caused Harry any trouble. The next evening brought another of her detentions, and when he got back to the dorm and waded through the crowd of officious housemates to go up to bed, he was very tempted to _let_ Hermione and Ginny spoonfeed him what they'd saved from dinner.

This time, by Monday morning he was still having trouble writing with his injured arm. Snape wouldn't let Hermione take notes for him, but potions notes seemed like an exercise in futility anyway as he fell further and further behind. Then in Thursday's lab, Snape wordlessly placed in front of Harry a bottle that turned out to be an Ambidextrous Draught. He tried it in detention with Umbridge the next day, but even when he wrote with his left arm, the quill still cut the message deeper and deeper into his right.

Also thanks to Umbridge, a look at the magical hourglasses that kept the House Points totals showed Gryffindor steadily declining, but everyone agreed that Ron's weekly rampages through the cloyingly fictional world of "Guided Practice" were well worth their cost. In fact, Ginny said her boyfriend Michael Corner had laughed so hard as she regaled him with the stories that he and several other Ravenclaws had begun following suit. A glance at the Ravenclaw hourglass proved that Ginny was most likely telling the truth, and indeed everyone's totals were suffering except the Slytherins, many of whom could often be seen hanging around the Trophy Room cum High Inquisitor's Office, endearing themselves to the new power at every opportunity.

House Points, however, were the least of anyone's worries. Not only did Ginny's jingly envelope not bring any delivery in response, but many letters that students had sent home in that first checks-inception flurry got either no response, or responses that seemed strangely spotty - and the students found themselves with no reliable way to check whether any suspected tampering was real or imagined. Before long, Hermione received a Daily Prophet with a patch of one page obviously erased. It was nestled among advertisements and probably not even a story, but even so, she was so angry that she wrote a letter to the Prophet cancelling her subscription and telling them that she refused to take a censored paper. That didn't seem to make it through the mail checks either as her papers just kept coming, and she had to tell the Prophet's owl every day to take its bundle back unpaid for.

After several days of this, however, Harry got a glimpse of the headline, snapped up the paper before Hermione could refuse it, and paid the owl himself. "Ministry Says No Connection Among Disappearances," it read. According to the story there had been four of them now, most recently a witch named Hestia Jones who had worked in the Ministry's own owlery and mailroom. Hadn't "Hestia" been the name that Mr. Weasley said the morning of Harry's hearing, the person who had told him about the sudden change of schedule just in the nick of time...? At that, Hermione admitted that cancelling her Daily Prophet subscription had been overly hasty.

Even as she relented, further down the table Parvati gave an anguished cry at finding key pages missing from her latest Owl-Post OWLs-Prep parcel.

Despite the school's haunting by the ghosts of missing mail, weeks went by with a surreal element of normalcy. Most of the professors kept covering their material with clockwork regularity and all their usual skill - except Professor Trelawney, who was suddenly mortified at any student who saw something mean-spirited in Dolores Umbridge's future. Even all the old clubs kept meeting, since that initial Emergency Measure had had to do only with "forming" organisations; the school chapter of Save Our Snidgets was still campaigning for magical wildlife, all the Quidditch teams held practice after practice for the first series games coming in November, and the Hogwarts Junior Thespian Society - Harry found it much easier just to call it the drama club - was gearing up for a winter performance that its members promised would make everyone laugh at their troubles. The school newspaper with Lee Jordan at the helm continued week by week, its energy only increasing. Lee had been forced to run Ginny's staff interview with Hagrid in the same issue as Marietta's with Professor Snape in order to head off a brewing fight between the two reporters. Freelance contributions - stories both journalistic and literary, drawings, essays, puzzles, poetry - poured in at such a rate that only a fraction could be printed in even the expanded paper, and Lee had little time left to join in Fred and George's hijinks as usual. Harry heard him wish he had a Time Turner just to juggle homework and newspaper submissions, and heard whispers that he had already been in trouble with McGonagall about the Exertincture.

But the paper's success, on closer inspection, was running counter to the calm facade - in it, students could air their concerns with a good deal of freedom. Each week came Colin's photographs of Umbridge's latest Educational Emergency Measures posted on the announcement board, and the Letters to the Editor dissected and railed against every one, as well as the whole Emergency situation. Where was the emergency, asked one contributor, who identified themself only as a 6th-year Hufflepuff; there had been no declaration of emergency three years ago when the Chamber of Secrets was open, none two years ago when Sirius Black the convicted murderer stalked the school and Dementors patrolled the grounds, so why now that nothing was happening? Harry could even forgive the line about Sirius when he read their last sentence: "It all makes a scary amount of sense if you listen to Harry Potter." The mood of most of the letters may have been dark, but the freedom to express those feelings and the proof that no one was alone in them made the Hex beloved and enjoyed.

Only one person in the school was displeased. Practically every time Professor McGonagall was seen outside of class, Umbridge's tuneless shrill came nipping at her heels about what she had let into that week's paper. McGonagall simply said she had been instructed by the Headmaster to take a hands-off approach and that Umbridge should discuss with him whether her requests would be in keeping with that. When the High Inquisitor attempted to confront Dumbledore about it at the Head Table one day at lunch, he offered her a lemon sherbet in reply. She was having none of it, but he persisted undeterred, and Harry had to think that Umbridge would have gotten better results by just eating the candy than what she was doing, continuing to harangue against a solid barrier of "Really, I insist. They're very good."

But there was no such barrier standing between Harry and Umbridge's quill every Friday evening. Every week's healing of the cuts had been undone before he finished a single page of lines, and the wounds grew worse and worse. By mid-October they were still badly sore from the previous detention when he went in for the next. Ever since the first time, he had refused the confession Umbridge offered him without even looking at it more than recognising it as the same one, but this week he read it through. He had hit upon it as a way of stalling, but now he couldn't help but wonder, _Would it hurt anything if I signed it?_ It would be a lie, but the Ministry was piled so high with those already, what would one more hurt? He remembered Hermione's concerns about the quill "brainwashing" him, which the quill certainly wasn't, but could the parchment? Could it be a magical contract of some kind, with an enchantment that would force him to abide by it? But still, he couldn't keep doing this forever, and it wouldn't stop until he gave in and signed. It would be so much easier... _What could it really hurt, if I just...?_

He mentally slapped himself. If he couldn't let Umbridge pick a fight with Dumbledore because that would be just what she wanted, then how could he, Harry Potter, sign off on the Ministry's lies, when she would surely want that too? He found the part about Cedric again:

 _"I also disavow any stated or implied challenge I may have made to the judgement of the Ministry of Magic regarding the evidence or conclusion in the death of Cedric Diggory."_

He read it over and over to steel his determination, at least ten times, before he finally slid it back across the desk without a word.

"Am I to understand we will be writing lines again Mr. Potter?"

He nodded.

"We will have to speak up, I don't believe I heard that."

Harry took a deep breath. "Yes, I'll do the lines." It came out as a sigh, despite his intention.

Umbridge handed him the same implements as every week before, and the instant he put the quill tip to the parchment, it sent such a bolt of agony shooting up his arm that he couldn't suppress a cry of pain. He braced himself with deep breaths and threw himself into his task.

Umbridge kept him very late; the fastest he could write was a snail's pace now and she mentioned wanting ten tries from him - Harry had quickly lost count of the lines in front of his face, let alone the pages. He bent low and curled around the parchment like a wounded animal. He tried desperately to hold back any outward expression of his pain, but it was more than he could do, and he wept aloud as he wrote - Umbridge made no acknowledgement of the sound. Tears fell from his nose and smeared the blue ink; it hardly mattered as by now his writing was deteriorated beyond the nursery level into illegible scratches. And yet no matter how errant the quill's marks on the parchment, its incising shadow never deviated from the course laid down in his first detention:

 **I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies.**

When Umbridge finally dismissed Harry, his arm was in such horrible pain that it gripped his entire body and he blundered around in search of Gryffindor Tower half-blind. Filch found him and took his hall pass, and Harry was too overcome to protest as the custodian led him back to his dorm commenting brightly that "Now _that's_ a proper detention!" It occurred to Harry to pull back his sleeve and scream at Filch to take it back, but he didn't have the energy to risk it.

When they arrived at Gryffindor Tower, Harry let his housemates pull him into the common room. He screamed as someone bared his arm - it ran blood at the slightest touch; his face streamed tears that fogged his glasses.

" _Bli' me._ " He heard Ron's voice hollow with shock.

Hermione seized him by his good arm. "Dear God, Harry, this is crazy! I'm going to get Madam Pomfrey!"

"No!" he howled.

"Harry, please!"

"You promised!" he sobbed. "You said you wouldn't - _you pro-ho-mi-hi-hissed!_ "

"Come on, mate, let's get you to bed." Ron gently but firmly guided Harry across the dumbstruck crowd in the common room and, with Neville going ahead to lead the way, half-carried Harry up the stairs.

He was still crying when they lay him in his bed, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was vaguely aware of a small crowd having followed him up the stairs now gathering around his bed. A girl's hands lifted his glasses off his face. The tip of a wand lightly touched his forehead.

" _Morpheosa._ " It was Hermione's voice that cut him loose from the tether of the light and his friends' shadows and voices. Harry sank down into his bed, into thick, warm blackness, as the charm put him deeply to sleep.

* * *

The deep, restful dark imperceptibly gave way to fitful dreams. Harry walked through the strange library he had seen in his sleep before - he now felt sure that it had been several times before and once quite recently - where the shelves were full of crystal balls rather than books, and he found himself looking down all the rows in search of his own right arm, which he knew to be missing. A talking Thestral turned into a quetzicalle to flitter along the shelves and finally into Cedric Diggory to point him to a particular spot.

"Do you want it when I find it?" Harry asked Cedric. "I'd let you have it."

"No, that's all right," Cedric replied. "You might ask Cho, though."

Harry began sifting through the indicated shelf, which was rather cluttered. Again, every crystal ball had a parchment label. One said "Edgar Frastley," another "Hestia Jones," yet a third "Dedalus Diggle," and Harry carefully set those aside before he found the one that indeed had his own right arm floating inside. The pasted-on parchment was turned to the far side of the crystal, but "I will not frighten my schoolmates with lies" was all the label he needed, and he picked up the orb with both hands, oblivious to the paradox. But now that he had found what he was looking for, he realised that he had no idea how to get it open. He hardly dared shake it. He turned it this way and that until the parchment label swivelled to the fore and stared back at him:

VOLDEMORT  
HARRY POTTER

He barely stopped himself from throwing it and smashing it, but then he'd never get his arm back... The label sent a chill through him, and more horrible yet, he saw the reflection in it again, of the Dark Lord's red snake-eyes looking over his shoulder...

Harry whipped around, but Voldemort wasn't there. Neither was Cedric. Even the orb-laden bookshelves were gone, and he found himself again in the Ministry's Thirteenth Floor, the Inquisition Hall.

" _Hem-hem!_ " He looked up to find Umbridge a "High" Inquisitor quite literally; she looked down on him from the judges' box, which was full of Hogwarts teachers. Dumbledore sat impassively in a back corner, next to Professor Snape, who was wearing a canary-yellow hooded robe. McGonagall led the rest in chattering objections at Umbridge, but the High Inquisitor ignored them. The benches ringing the room were filled with students, but where were Harry's friends? He couldn't find Hermione, or any of the Weasleys at all...

"In order to get back your arm," Umbridge intoned from the judges' box, "You must complete this sentence correctly: 'The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is Located At: ...'"

"But I can't do that!" he cried.

"Until you complete the sentence _correctly_ ," Umbridge continued, "you will simply have to keep trying, and the defendant will write down every response you give."

Harry had thought _he_ was the defendant, but now that he looked, Umbridge's desk was there in place of the chained chair, and in front of it sat his godfather, with Umbridge's parchment and quill in his hands.

"Sirius!" he cried. Sirius didn't say anything or look up.

"Begin, Mr. Potter!" Umbridge commanded. "'The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is Located At:'."

Harry gaped. He remembered being at the Headquarters, he remembered Tonks leading him there, and yet he blurted out the only address he could think of: "Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey." Sirius wrote it on the parchment in letters blue as a bruise.

" _Incorrect!_ Again, Mr. Potter! 'The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is Located At:'!"

The answer was so torturously close to the surface, but he couldn't think of it - and even if he did, what would happen if he told it to Umbridge! He rummaged his brain for addresses that might satisfy her. He thought of Number Ten Downing Street. He thought of 221B Baker Street and even the second star to the right, but all that would come out of his mouth was "Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey!" Again and again he said it, and again and again Sirius wrote it down. He didn't make a sound; Harry didn't see the quill wound him, but as the Inquisition lurched on and on watched in horror as he grew pale and faint, and Harry finally ran to him and seized him to keep him from collapsing on Umbridge's desk.

Sirius's robes were damp. In a horrible flash Harry understood - the quill had been cutting him everywhere that Harry couldn't see; the Privet Drive address was carved all over him, and only the color of his robes had been hiding the blood...

He squeezed Sirius tight against him. "Stop it! I can't do this!" he screamed. "Take the arm back - I don't want it anymore!"

"Oh, that works out great!" a chipper voice announced. Harry looked up to find Colin Creevey hurrying up to him from behind, his camera bouncing on its neck-strap. "Ron and Hermione and Ginny, they figured out how to get an Owl-post order through and they found you a new one in the Quality Quidditch catalog. Wait 'til it comes in - it'll be better than ever!"

"Oh." Harry felt strange, but the relief was undeniable. Sirius looked up at him; every problem seemed to melt away.

"Could you hold up the old one, though, for a picture?" Colin asked.

"Wha?"

"I want to get a picture of you with your old arm, for the Hex."

"Oh, sure," Harry said. "I bet that'll make Umbridge scream." Suddenly it was all surreally pleasant as he held up the orb with his inscribed arm inside and smiled for Colin to take the photo.

The flash of light outlasted the "snap!" of the camera. It wrenched Harry up so that he had to blink and squint his eyes open. His bedcurtains stood aside for a flood of morning sunlight, and Hermione leaned over him. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wake you up."

"'Sall right," he slurred.

"How do you feel?"

"Unngh... Don't ask..." His arm lay throbbing on the mattress beside him. Its pain was so intense that it was nauseating, too much so even for him to eat or stir from his bed. Especially the wound rested in a thick cushion of burning heat, but his entire body felt feverish. When he got a look at his arm, it was all red and swollen. The inscription itself still struggled even to scab over; the words were written heavy and deep in dark purplish red surrounded by a ghastly ridge of white. It was unbearable to move his fingers, let alone his arm.

"Hold still..." Hermione carefully put his glasses on for him and was plying him with poached eggs and dry toast when Ron and Ginny dashed in. It was earlier than he would have expected Quidditch players back from practice, but Angelina was with them. "I got you something," she said, and held out a tin of Ludmilla Healy's Salubrious Salve.

"Where did you get it?" Hermione asked.

"We told Madam Pomfrey we wanted it for the Quidditch Team's scrapes," Ginny replied. "She didn't bat an eye."

"I'm really sorry," Angelina said. "We should have thought of it weeks ago, but... Well, we had to do something."

Harry braced himself as Ginny took the tin from Angelina, scooped up a great dollop of medicine, and plopped down on one of the stools his housemates had placed around his bed. However, she paused, regarded his arm, and touched the salve to the wound just enough for it to stick, leaving a peak of it when she lifted away her hand. In that manner she worked her way delicately down the line, carefully covering every word.

"I'm so glad," Hermione said. "I had ordered some, but it can't hurt to have more."

"Not the way Ginny's using it," Ron remarked.

"She's doing a wonderful job," Harry said, lest Ron dissuade his sister. While it didn't ease his pain completely, the salve had a wonderfully cool, soothing sensation. He turned his head on his pillow and looked at Hermione. "How did you order some? I thought Ginny already tried that."

"Right, and nothing ever came back," she said distractedly, still dabbing salve. "Mail checks must have picked it up."

"So not only is Umbridge a Nazi," Ron remarked, "but she's also been stealing pocket money from my baby sister."

"I heard from some of the other people in Arithmancy that Professors' mail doesn't go through the checks," Hermione explained. "They said Professor Flitwick had sent letters home for them, so I asked him about making an Owl-post order, since I knew that had happened to Ginny. Don't worry, I didn't say what it was for."

"And he let you give him the money and ordered it for you?" Harry asked.

"When I told him Ginny's order hadn't gotten through, he said not to even bother with the money, that there was no sense in charging us twice. -I can pay you back for that, by the way," she added to Ginny.

"Oh, we'll sort it out later," she said. "Michael said Kaana was sending letters for her students, too, but like everyone over there in Ravenclaw is in Runes and I don't think either of you boys are..."

"I could probably pass things for you, though. She likes me," Hermione said.

"There!" Ginny announced, putting the cover back on the salve-tin. "How does that feel?"

"Better," Harry sighed.

"I still think you should go to Madam Pomfrey this time," Hermione argued; she put a hand to his forehead. "It feels like you're running a fever. If it gets infected, it would be stupid to wait until it's even worse..."

"I can still manage," he declared. "I'm not going to anybody - and remember, you promised me."

"You stupid baby," she grumbled. He was about to retort when it occurred to him that he had heard her "say" it without seeing her lips move. The next moment confirmed it: "Of course you 'can manage,'" Hermione thought with thick sarcasm, then she lifted her hand from his forehead and went back to spooning eggs onto his toast.

"Well, at least try to eat a little more," she said aloud and brandished the toast at his face.

He took it with his own left hand and nibbled gamely at it.

* * *

Professor Flitwick did indeed deliver Hermione's order of salve after his class on Tuesday, and it seemed that the two tins of medicine opened a gap in the dark clouds of the Educational Emergency. Few people could actually know about those two little acts of defiance, but the whole school seemed to brighten up; Harry noticed more and more people talking about which professors would or wouldn't forward mail; Flitwick was the most widely known and widely used, and indeed a first trickle of students could even be seen coming out of his class with parchments that they held tight to their chests and furtively looked at with smiles or even tears. Moreover, the students had plenty to look forward to: a Hogsmeade weekend was coming that Saturday, plus Halloween after that and then the first Quidditch game, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin.

Harry's housemates were optimistic about that most bitter rivalry game in the school; Ginny always came back from practice crowing about how much fun she'd had and how well the team was coming together, and when Seamus weighed the odds, he said that in the Slytherins' practices, _their_ team was falling apart. Draco had never been a good Seeker - "If he was any good, the spot wouldn't have cost his Dad so many brooms," - but at least a poor Seeker kept out of the way for the most part and didn't hamper the rest of their team's efforts to compensate. Crabbe and Goyle as Beaters, however, were every bit as bad, and a lack of good Beaters left the Chasers in a difficult spot. Of course Harry himself was relying on second-hand reports of this, and thought that he may do so even for the game itself. He wasn't sure yet whether he could bear to watch Quidditch, grounded in the stands.

Of course, if his detentions with Umbridge continued as they had been, then doing anything on any Saturday morning had to be considered off the cards, although he thought that he still wanted to go to Hogsmeade even if that meant being carried out into the village and vomiting at the smell of Honeydukes.

In truth, however, he couldn't imagine even one more detention with Umbridge. Even with the salve, his arm was sore well into the school week. This past Friday night had been so terrible that it cast a shadow even over his memory of Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse, and the salve wouldn't help him while he was there writing with that cursed quill. The fact that he'd been tempted to sign the confession frightened him; would he do it if it just continued long enough? Surely he should go to Dumbledore rather than give in, but he couldn't do either of those things, and the only alternative was continuing to endure the pain, which was even more impossible.

Harry was trapped between those three barred doors and spent most of the week huddling in the middle, leaving Friday evening a horrifying hole in his mind. Nothing, not the Hogsmeade weekend or Halloween festivities or even his friends beating Draco at Quidditch, could reach across that abyss to cheer him. On Thursday he seriously considered going to Dumbledore, but discouraged himself recalling that last time he'd talked to the Headmaster it had taken him three tries to get in, so it was probably too late for this week. Besides, how could he explain having lied before? He'd come this far on his own; wouldn't running to the Headmaster now just prove that he'd been stupid, like Hermione said? He let Thursday night slip by, and across the black chasm of Friday nothing seemed to matter.

That morning in the Gryffindor Common Room, the nervous dread got in the way of any kind of homework he attempted, and his distress must have been visible. "Look, why not try just not showing up?" Ron asked. "Just come on to dinner with us. I mean, what more is she going to do to you anyway? May as well at least make her chase you."

"I don't know," Harry said, highly uncomforted by thoughts of what more Umbridge could do to him. "It's kind of nice still having one arm."

"Well, we'll get you down to the great hall, and we'll tell McGonagall you're cutting detention," Hermione suggested. "There won't be much Umbridge can do at that point except confirm it, and I'll bet you could get detention with McGonagall instead."

A strange day indeed when getting detention with Professor McGonagall sounded like such a blessing - and had Hermione's recommendation - but the risk was too great, of having to explain why he was cutting. "I said I wasn't going to drag her into it," he answered finally. "And you said you wouldn't either."

"I really wish I'd never promised you that," Hermione moaned.

That afternoon, Defense Against the Dark Arts inched by slow as torture. Everyone else in the room had seen the state she'd returned him in a week ago, and they all gave him strange questioning looks, but this time of a much different kind than they had in Umbridge's first lesson. Harry's impending doom made everyone so grave that Ron even followed the Guided Practice to its implicit pat conclusion.

At last the class ended. "Everyone is dismissed except Mr. Potter," Umbridge said. Only slowly, however, did Harry's housemates shuffle out of the room.

Not even that for Ron and Hermione. Ron stopped at Harry's desk and tugged at his arm as if to say "come on, come along with us," and even when Harry shook his head, his friend didn't move. Hermione lay her hand on his other shoulder and similarly stood like a bodyguard.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley," Umbridge repeated, approaching them with a tight, poisonous smile on her painted lips. " _You. are. dismissed._ "

Neither made a move. Harry was suddenly terrifed to see them both stiffen not bend-he hadn't wanted to force Dumbledore into confrontation with Umbridge, but he'd do that ten times before he would set her on Ron and Hermione!

"Go on, you'll be late for dinner," he told them.

"But Harry-" Hermione protested.

"Just go!" he snapped.

She made a strained whimper and dug her fingernails into his shoulder for a second before hurrying from the room. Ron watched after her for a moment.

"Go on, I said," Harry told him.

"Okay. I'll see you tonight," he said reluctantly, and left.

"Well," Umbridge said, still wearing that venomous smirk. "Of course - _hem-hem_ \- you could join them directly, Mr. Potter. It's really up to you."

"No it's not," he said flatly, getting up from his desk. Did she think he could just decide whether that confession was true or not? But then, apparently the Ministry thought they could do precisely that. They could decide that Voldemort wasn't back, they could decide that Cedric had been killed by an accident... When Umbridge led him into her office and offered him the confession to sign, he remembered that giving in to it was a very real danger, and he pushed it back toward her without even a glance at it.

"Now now really, Mr. Potter, I must insist that we refresh ourselves on it before we decide," Umbridge said, pushing it back to him.

Harry reluctantly picked it up, but as he ran his eyes over it, he found that his mind had now reached the black hole and had fallen into a state of blank resignation. For the moment, nothing outside this room existed, and nothing inside it could he afford to concern himself with. He scanned the document, absorbing nothing but providing an appearance, and handed it back to Umbridge. "I'll do the lines," he said, quiet but calm.

Uncharacteristically, she blinked at him several times before clearing her throat again - " _hem-hem_ " - and reaching for the blank parchment and the same quill to pass to him. "Do you need me to repeat your line?" she asked him.

"No, I know it," he said almost casually.

"In that case... _Hem-hem..._ Begin, Mr. Potter."

He picked up the quill took a deep breath, savoring a last moment of his artificial calm. As soon as the tip touched the page, he knew that it would shatter, but now as it lasted, his mind was saying "nothing for it"... He braced his hand and lowered the quill to the parchment...

 _**Knock Knock Knock!** _

Harry lifted the quill again before making a single mark. He just looked over his shoulder, wondering who it could be at the door.

Umbridge, however, literally jumped up out of her chair. "Who is it?" she crooned.

"This is Professor McGonagall. May I come in? I am sorry to interrupt but this is quite urgent."

Before the interloper was even finished speaking, Umbridge plucked the quill and parchment from Harry's hands and whisked them into her desk. "Of course! Please do come right in!" she called as Harry heard her turn a key in a drawer-lock.

McGonagall stepped inside, more serious and severe than ever. "I need an answer for the students; I was asked how the Educational Emergency measures will apply during the Hogsmeade visit tomorrow. So sorry to barge in on you, Mr. Potter."

It took Harry half a second to realise that he was being addressed. "Oh, it's all right."

"How many more of these detentions are you serving? I understand this is your sixth, and they're still listed until further notice."

"An oversight on my part - _hem-hem!_ \- on the schedule," Umbridge cut in. "This is his last. More properly the last was his, ah - _hem-hem_ \- last, and this more a debriefing you could say, and I believe I had covered the important points. You are dismissed, Mr. Potter."

He could hardly believe it. "Dismissed? For good you mean? I'm not to be back next week?"

" _Hem-hem!_ That is what I said, Mr. Potter. Dismissed!"

As Harry rose from his chair, Professor McGonagall produced a small tin from her pocket and flipped it open as she proffered it to her colleague. "Lozenge?"

Umbridge's face screwed up; Harry sensed that she was willfully holding back from clearing her throat again. "No. Thank you."

Harry left the Trophy Room Office still in that strange detached haze. As he went, he thought he heard footsteps behind him. When he turned around to look, he saw no one, but at the bottom of the first staircase he heard Ron laugh.

"That was so perfect with the actual tin of lozenges!" Ron said as he shrugged off Harry's Invisibility Cloak. "Sorry I nicked this on you; hope you don't mind."

"No," Harry said, accepting it back and putting it in his pocket. "You were there the whole time?"

"Just the last little bit. Can't believe McGonagall didn't catch me but I guess she had other things on her mind. Hermione must have gone back on her word after all."

That cut through Harry's defensive fog. "She told McGonagall...?"

"Somebody did," Ron said. "You don't think that was coincidence, do you? Did Umbridge get you at all this time?"

"No, I hadn't started yet." When he thought of it, Ron was right. The Hogsmeade visit provided the perfect cover, but surely McGonagall wouldn't have arrived with such perfect timing to rescue Harry if that hadn't been her real intention. Absentmindedly rubbing his arm, he couldn't deny being thankful, and it didn't seem that anything bad had come of the intervention-at least not yet-but the thought that Hermione had broken her promise did sting. The way she had dashed out of the Defense classroom close to tears, probably she had run straight to get a teacher despite her word... "So when you left after class you didn't catch up with her?"

"No, I went back to the dorm to borrow your cloak," Ron said, lowering his voice as they neared the great hall. "Even if you didn't want me doing anything, I wasn't going to just leave you alone this time."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. -It'll be nice to have supper on a Friday, won't it?" he said. The warm smells and conversational buzz of the great hall at dinner swallowed them up, and they crossed to the Gryffindor table, where several people leapt up from their seats to greet Harry.

* * *

Hermione had not been seen in the great hall either, further confirming Harry and Ron's suspicions that she had gone straight to McGonagall instead. She was there in the tower when they all came back from dinner, and when she saw Harry she hugged him as if he had just come back from a war. He returned the gesture but was a bit perfunctory with it, and when the whole story was told again - it would be retold numerous times before the end of the evening - Harry gave her a few slightly-sharp looks, but he must have underplayed them, he thought, as she didn't seem to notice.

Harry had eaten for once, but Hermione had skipped it, and Ginny seized the excuse to drag both of them and Ron to the Transfiguration classroom where the presses had been set up for the Hogwarts X-Press. All had their share of pizza as Ginny offered a guided tour. Colin and Dean were doing paste-up and last-minute touchups with Susan Bones from Hufflepuff proofreading. Kelley Randall and Legantine Price were there whispering to each other and waiting for the actual printing to begin - they were always in charge of collecting and collating the pages, Ginny said.

With nothing else to do yet, Kelley began following Harry around the room and asked him all the questions he would have expected from a Muggle-born first year just acquainted with the fame of "Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived" - but then she continued with unabashed curiosity into _more_ questions that he _wouldn't_ have expected and he found himself giving her an embarassing number of non-answers.

"So You-Know-Who's curse bounced back on him, right? So if it was going to kill you, why didn't it kill him?"

"I don't know," Harry shrugged. "I don't suppose anybody knows."

"Can we not talk about all that?" Susan called. Harry seemed to recall hearing that the Boneses had lost a lot of family in the war.

Legantine didn't seem so impressed with Harry, but she followed Kelley around after him. Perhaps not listening to the conversation freed her to notice other things such as the way he held his right arm, and at any rate she was regarding it too curiously for comfort when Lee finally rescued him by pushing several Letters to the Editor into his hands.

"Got this _big_ last-minute thing from the Thespian Society, but it just _has_ to go in. I can only fit one of these and I can't decide..." All were very good, but Harry picked the one about all the Guided Practices that had gone awry and the author's thoughts on what made them so funny.

Most weeks Harry might have been tempted to stay long into the night to see the papers actually produced, but tonight he and his friends all wanted to rest up for the Hogsmeade visit, so they took their leave and went back to the dorm and to bed. Looking forward to Hogsmeade tomorrow without the prospect of being sick with pain, Harry at last settled into his bed in a warm cushion of relief that the nightmare of his detentions with Umbridge was over. Maybe Hermione had broken her promise, but while getting McGonagall involved had been a gamble Harry hadn't wanted to take, he had to admit that it had gone their way.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Seventeen: Umbridge Strikes Back**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Sixteen_

At this point I suspect Dumbledore is handling Umbridge by letting her have the rope to proverbially hang herself. Mail checks etc. couldn't be kept secret forever and were going to turn the public against her and Fudge, if Albus could just wait it out and make sure no one got hurt. (Physical abuse of a student would've made good copy, too, if Harry weren't being such a bloody secretive Stupid Stupid Boy.)

However, somewhat to my surprise, Umbridge actually showed a distant twinkle of humanity here, like she had really thought Harry would sign the statement now and actually didn't like having to injure him so badly. Don't worry, it's just a passing thing...

With the cutting quill, I had the "OM _ **G!**_ 0_0" realisation that Umbridge probably made Harry go over this inscription about a thousand times total. 20 lines per page, I'd say an average of 10 pages per detention (that's probably conservative if anything), and she did this for five weeks, so there it is: one _thousand_. I think he's going to have that scar for the rest of his life... The descriptions of his arm's condition were getting pretty squicky here, I know, but it's over with now.

While I am uncomfortable with letting any of these characters use the word "Nazi," I did think that was a great line on Ron's part and I just can't think of another word that would do the job in that sentence half so well.

Also, in my mind, if a seven-book series had started this year, it would be about Kelley and Legantine. Bad news, Harry, it's a couple of those things you were in book 1... (They won't be important to this story, I just have the sense that they're having their own on the side - and Kelley's sharp enough to try to shake Harry down for plot points.)

  



	17. Umbridge Strikes Back

  


  


  


**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Seventeen  
 _Umbridge Strikes Back_**

The next morning the school paper was late, Harry thought probably because of all the last-minute reworking for the sake of the Hogwarts Junior Thespians, but at least they had the decency to help the newspaper staff pass copies out at the doors of the great hall as students left for the village. Before Harry and his friends were halfway down the path to the school's outer gates and their winged boar statues, scattered laughter broke out as people flipped through the paper.

His curiosity thus piqued, Harry found the drama club feature first; it announced an open rehearsal for their winter production to be held on the lawn of the Three Broomsticks - with thanks to the proprietor, Mme. Rosmerta, from whom they had gotten permission in advance via owl-post. Then, strangely, they went on to print large portions of their script. Glancing over the list of scenes, Harry was rather put off by the title "Sirius Brown Isn't Such A Loser After All," but Ron was ahead of him and urged him to read on. "If I can laugh at Don Stoatley, you ought to be able to laugh at Sirius Brown," he whispered.

At Ron's behest, Harry started skimming the scenes and immediately broke into a grin despite himself - the drama club's production was a pastiche of all the guided practices out of the Slinkhard textbook! Unbelievable cardboard characters lurched through a tenuously strung together series of slightly tweaked scenarios whose laughable fakery was left wholly intact. Sirius's doppelganger had been cast as the attacker who wept over a gift of conjured flowers, and Harry at last relaxed into the realisation that his godfather would surely find the skit hilarious. Every scene somehow levered in a fearful mention of the infamous "Don Stoatley," who appeared at last to bring Sirius and the shop clerk's wedding crashing down in flames as a sudden yet triumphant conclusion.

As if it weren't enough on its own, that "special feature" was paired with Ginny's "investigative report" about the textbook. She must have taken advantage of a professor's willingness to forward mail as, according to the article, she had indeed sent a donated copy of Defensive Alternatives to Tonks at Auror Headquarters to see what the people there thought of it. Tonks - who gave an aside greeting to a "Cassy" whom she had known in her own student days and who was still at the school - had simply found the book dull, but had asked around the office as Ginny's proxy. Kingsley Shacklebolt could be glimpsed scratching his head between the lines as he tried to say that it was useless without insulting it directly. Alastor Moody, however, laughed himself out of breath before all at once realising that Hogwarts students were actually being taught this drivel, at which point he suddenly refused any further comment.

In the village, students ran hastily in and out of Honeydukes for their candy and flooded the yard of the Three Broomsticks, where the Hogwarts Junior Thespians were putting on their show and Mme. Rosmerta was serving hot butterbeer outside in the chilly autumn air; hosting the production was probably the best business move she could have made. Quite a few students also flocked to the Hogsmeade Owl Post Office with letters for their parents. Dean caught Harry and his friends for a moment with word that Blaise Zabini had even taken out a post-office box for students to receive replies, but while Harry was overjoyed to see more and more of his schoolmates slip through Umbridge's fingers, neither the forwarding professors nor the Hogsmeade post office could surmount the problems preventing him from writing home. The Weasley Twins also led a sizeable expedition to Zonko's to stock their practical joke arsenal, and Ron said that they were smuggling a number of Headless Hats that they hoped to sell on consignment.

As much as Harry enjoyed the script in the paper, he wasn't sure that seeing it performed would much heighten the effect, nor that he really wanted to see Sirius portrayed by Michael Corner in a messy black wig, so he went with Hermione to do more practical shopping. At the Herbs and Potions market, which was being held in the open air for this one last weekend before moving indoors for the winter, Harry was shocked at how much a bottle of Catalytical Potion cost, but he took a deep breath and bought one. Scrivenshaft's actually had a red-marked black quill just like Umbridge's, locked in a glass case and labelled "Cutting Quill, 60 Galleons; License and Identification Required for Purchase." Harry decided against asking a clerk for the details, but as he wandered around waiting for Hermione to make her purchases, he kept coming back to it and staring at it. They looked around Gladrags, and Hermione found a wildly colorful pair of stockings that reminded her of Dobby so much that she bought them for him, and she picked out a small square shawl for Winky also.

"I don't want her to feel left out," Hermione explained, "and I thought maybe this wouldn't look so much like clothes and upset her... Of course I _wish_ I could just buy something for _all_ of them, but I think the staff would have to do that. I mean, surely if a student could free the school house-elves, somebody would have done it just for a prank..."

An old wizard who was examining a thick winter robe next to them did a double-take and stared at Hermione, apparently just catching what she was talking about. She went off to check out, pretending not to notice, and Harry shamefacedly mouthed to the man, "That's saner than she used to be."

Finally he followed her into Sister Grimm, the village bookshop where the window superimposed the words "New - Used - Rare - Unique" over a view of jumbled but brightly-lit shelves. Again Harry just tried to busy himself as Hermione avidly browsed. The shop owner, a graying witch who introduced herself as "Eulalie Grimm," noticed him and took him to a table nestled in a back corner, where she offered tea and biscuits.

"Sit tight, I've got something for you to look at," she said. She hurried off and returned presently with a brightly-colored volume of "Locke Augurey: Magical Super-Spy." "I remember your father always used to have me save those comic books for him, good rest his soul," Ms. Grimm said. "I thought you might find it interesting."

"Yes, thank you," he said, and looked through it as Hermione sat down beside him and began sorting through the large stack of books she had pulled down, mostly Defense texts in varying states of age and disrepair.

Locke Augurey turned out to be a sort of wizard superhero take on the Cold War spy movie theme, and indeed with moving wizard pictures, the comics took on more the effect of patchwork cinema. Harry wasn't making much of the stories even if they _had_ been favorites of his father's, but when Ron came to fetch him and Hermione, he decided to buy the book anyway.

The trio reunited, Ron took charge of the heavy load of books Hermione had just bought. They went to Honeydukes for their favorite sweets and then to the Three Broomsticks; the pub thronged and roared with Hogwarts students. Laughs recalling the Thespians' parody rippled at various points around the room - "They actually called me up to take a bow at the end of it," Ron crowed - and Harry felt that the air was alive with freedom and relief on a day out from under Umbridge's thumb. Even the citizens of Hogsmeade who were there were basking in that atmosphere, and Harry saw that a few of the older witches and wizards had gotten hold of the Hogwarts X-Press and were reading it with interest, a few laughs, and a few raised-eyebrow frowns.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had found a table and were just placing their orders when Cho and Marietta approached. "Excuse me," Cho cut in on something Hermione had been saying. "Would you three mind if we sit with you?"

"No, of course not," Harry immediately answered.

"Just a Gillywater for me please," Marietta told the waiter.

"Butterbeer ice cream float for me," Cho said.

"Yeah, change mine to that, too," Harry added hastily. That had been good at the start-of-term feast...

"Should we just get one and put two straws in?" Ron asked drolly. Harry gave him a strange look and Cho squirmed a little.

"So, are you planning a newspaper article about anything in town today?" Hermione asked Marietta.

"Well, not really. Of course there was the drama club thing, but I figure _Ginny_ will probably write all about that - no offense!" she added swiftly to Ron, as if realising a second too late just who she was complaining about her rival reporter to. "I just don't see why everyone has to give Professor Umbridge such a hard time anyway."

Ron had been handed his butterbeer just in time to spit it. " _She-!_ She..." He sputtered, no doubt choking on the realisation that the worst of Umbridge's crimes were things Marietta couldn't know about. "She's been teaching you out of the same book as us, right?"

"And what about this 'Educational Emergency' business?" Hermione demanded.

"She didn't declare that; the Ministry did. She's probably just trying to do her job, and sure she's having some bumps, but that's no reason to rip her apart. Maybe your classes with her would be going better if you'd give her a break."

Ron was struck speechless; he breathed out half-laughs one at a time. Harry looked away so he could roll his eyes.

"I do think, though..." Cho turned him around again, toying with her float. "Well, everybody's heard about the first time you had class with her and... I thought it was brave of you, standing up for Cedric like that."

"Well, I... ah..." Harry fumbled for a reply, then met her eyes. They looked at each other for a moment, and Cho's gaze again washed Harry in that warm peach glow, the same as he had felt on the train. His heart swelled happily into his throat and he couldn't speak.

He was too overcome to take much notice of Ron and Hermione's knowing smiles.

* * *

The students returned to the castle for dinner to find the High Inquisitor barely clinging to her composure. She accosted Flitwick as he came in the castle doors and confronted him about forwarding students' mail - she must have caught wind of the students' talk and put two and two together as to how Ginny got a book to Tonks and the Thespians got permission from Madame Rosmerta. Flitwick nodded at her broadly-implied threats to sack him with all the patience of someone who had taught at Hogwarts a hundred times longer than Umbridge had, but forwarding mail through him was clearly no longer an option. When McGonagall came to see what the trouble was, she got an earful about the "urgent answers" she had specifically requested not being posted in time - because the printing facilities were busy, she explained. However, turning Umbridge to the subject of the paper was opening a floodgate.

At the mention of "urgent answers" being posted, Harry and his friends hurried to the announcements board. Sure enough there were more emergency measures:

 _Students are not to utilise Owl-Post facilities outside the school, including those in the Village of Hogsmeade_   
_Students are not to hold organisation or club activities outside the school grounds._   
_Students outside school grounds on holidays or Hogsmeade visits are not to purchase or otherwise procure items of a dangerous or disruptive nature._

That last measure meant a blanket ban on Zonko's products, and the first two would have ruled out the main events of the day: the crowd at the post office and the drama club's open rehearsal. Apparently Umbridge had on second thought not found even that condemnation sufficient, however; another parchment was pasted to the announcement board just beside that one, handwritten in her own mechanical script:

 _All student clubs, organisations, "Societies", et cetera are hereby disbanded by order of the High Inquisitor._   
_Permission to re-organise must be sought from the Senior Field Minister for Education._   
_Students are not to post letters or other materials by any means except the Hogwarts Owlery. Hogwarts Staff mail may be monitored to assure compliance._

Straggling shamefacedly onto a corner of the board was one final pertinent announcement:

 _On Quidditch Weekends, the Hogwarts X-Press will come out not on Saturday but on the following Monday, in order to avoid conflicts with games and provide prompt reporting thereupon._

Pertinent, Harry thought, assuming that the school newspaper still existed.

* * *

Where the first round of Educational Emergency Measures had been met with surreal calm, these new ones sent the entire school into a panic. Every student club at once disbanded! The Hogwarts Junior Thespian Society was of course turned down immediately when they applied to reorganise - probably, people said, they had known that Umbridge would shut them down as soon as they began rehearsals, and had made such a production in the Hex and in the village so as many people as possible would see their parody first. Other clubs' efforts to resume activities set the school abuzz with rumors that Umbridge was demanding loyalty oaths from every member. Word had it that the school chapter of Save Our Snidgets was destroyed for good because some of the key student officers refused to sign.

Worse yet, what did this mean for the Halloween festivities? What did it mean for the first Quidditch game coming up the week after that? Did the demolition of student organisations extend to the Quidditch teams? Did it extend to the yearbook, or the paper? Lee and his staff kept working until someone told them not to, even putting out an issue the following Saturday covering the Hogsmeade visit and the new rules, but they did so under constant uncertainty.

After a week of chaos, Dumbledore stood up at dinner Monday and tried to put everyone at ease by announcing that as a staff-sponsored event, the school Halloween celebration would go on the following evening as planned, and further that there was no cause for alarm about the Quidditch season as "clubs, organisations, societies, et cetera" certainly did not imply athletic teams or publications. This was met with a literally audible sigh of relief that Quidditch would be spared this year, but Harry knew that it was only a momentary reprieve for the Hex. The paper was living dangerously, and with the best friend of Fred and George Weasley as its editor, it was certain to continue doing so.

Judging by the look on Umbridge's face and the way she hurried over to talk to Dumbledore after the announcement, he obviously had not consulted her, and quite likely she _had_ intended it to include the student newspaper, but the Headmaster answering her complaints was the picture of innocence. "Terribly sorry if I mis-spoke, Dolores, but I simply had to put to rest all the wild speculations. Some of the rumors reflected quite badly on you, and I simply can't bear to see a colleague unfairly maligned..."

That weekend's issue of the Hex was relatively tame and avoided condemnation, but Harry was sure it was because of the holiday distraction, not capitulation; at worst Lee must be biding his time. Most of the issue reported on the Halloween celebration in a safely innocuous way. Marietta had done the job of "society reporter" and reported on the party decorations and activities and the food at the feast; meanwhile, Ginny had gone behind the scenes. Hermione had coaxed her along when she went to deliver Dobby's new stockings and Winky's shawl, and in honor of the feast, the Hogwarts House-Elves were that week's staff interview. Mostly, however, that meant that Dobby was the staff interview, because none of the others were half as loquacious, and Harry had to defend his friend when other students scoffed about what a nutter of an elf Ginny had gotten hold of, who loved to wear clothes work for pay.

Dumbledore, however, heartily approved and even buttonholed Ginny over breakfast one day. Harry felt strange to have the Headmaster standing so close, but again his back was turned to Harry as he spoke. "Brilliant interview this issue, Ginger. My compliments."

"Oh, thank you! It was really Hermione's idea."

"Who are you planning to shine your spotlight on next?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe one of the elective professors a lot of us don't hear about so much, like maybe Trelawney or Kaana, or Conrad over in Muggle Studies..."

Dumbledore gave a great sigh. "Ah, me, passed over again... I do keep hoping..."

Ginny jumped up after him as he started away forlornly. "Well, if you _want_ an interview, that's all you have to say! Just let me know when you would want me to come - I mean, I've got a lot of Quidditch practice this week, but..."

"Oh, would you? I'd be delighted!" he said. "Perhaps over breakfast on Friday?"

"All right."

"I'll have some lovely pastries for us."

"That would be great, thank you."

"No, please, it's my honor."

As he returned to the head table, Ginny sat back down with a bright smile but wide eyes. "That was odd," she said.

"That's Dumbledore for you," Ron said, but not bitingly. "Never do anything in a normal sort of way if you can make it a bit odd..."

"Would you do me a favor?" Harry asked Ginny.

"Sure, what?"

"While you're there for the interview, ask him why he won't look at me."

"Won't look at you?" she questioned.

"Just ask him that, will you?" he said. He took another moment before he was willing to explain himself in a low voice. "He hasn't looked me in the eyes once since this summer. It's getting to the point there has to be a reason..."

"Oh, come on," Ron said. "Most students don't come face-to-face with the Headmaster hardly ever. Sure, it's different with you, but still."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to make you any more of a target for Umbridge, like if she saw him showing you any special attention," Hermione concurred.

"Maybe," Harry said with a slow nod. "I still want to ask, though." Of course he was not being totally honest; Ron and Hermione hadn't been there that night in Dumbledore's office, when the Headmaster had literally fled the room rather than turn and look Harry in the eye. Harry was still keeping that to himself, but hoped he could get Ginny to raise the question anyway...

"Sure, I'll ask if you want me to," she said. "I always use the tape for things like that, so I can play back what he says, no trouble at all."

"Thanks."

* * *

Ginny was as good as her word. She had to skip the beginning of a Quidditch practice Friday morning - to which Ron went looking rather white - but she was thus missing only a small part of Angelina's last-minute frenzy before the next day's grudge match. Harry was trying to catch up on his Charms Review assignments and practicing Summoning Charms with the throwpillows off a nearby couch when Ginny literally ran into the common room out of breath and dashed over to him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Ginny, did something happen?" Hermione questioned also.

She shook her head with a grin. "No, I just wanted to hurry to practice," she panted, and rummaged Sirius's cassette out of her bag. "Got the tape for you Harry; your question's at the end. I'm afraid he didn't really answer it exactly, but I said you could hear the tape so there it is. -Say," she fell suddenly into a new tone and topic, "did you ever decide whether you're coming to the game tomorrow?"

" _I_ definitely am," Hermione said.

Harry, on the other hand, was still diffident at the idea of watching his favorite game, and even his favorite activity of flying, when he couldn't do it himself. "I don't know..."

Ginny shocked him by dropping to her knees and seizing his hand with both of hers. "Oh, please come!" she insisted. "The whole team wants to win it for you! It'd be so sad if you're not there!"

"Ah-" he started back and caught her eyes without really meaning to.

"Fred and George are going, so surely you can," Hermione said. "Besides, I know Ron's really worked up about it. He's always been there when you needed someone to cheer for you, so it's really the least you can do, I should think..."

Her arguments would have inspired no more than a grudging "I suppose maybe...", but Harry barely heard them; he had fallen into Ginny's blue eyes. He knew at once why she'd so happily run here and was so eager to get to practice. In her eyes he could see the azure sky; he felt the wind against his face, the thrill of the ground twirling far below - the joy of flying, just as he felt it every time he got on his broom...

 _"I want you to see me, too, just once."_

Harry couldn't tell whether she had said it aloud or merely thought it, but it hardly mattered. "I... I'll try to come," he said.

"Hooray!" Ginny leapt up and released his hand, but she gave him a peck of a kiss just above his left eyebrow before she ran back out the portrait hole.

He sat rubbing it for a moment.

"Listen to that upstairs?" Hermione finally asked him, indicating the cassette.

"Right."

Lavender giggled. "Two at once, Harry, what are you going to do?" she called at him as they crossed the common room.

 _What is she on about?_ he wondered hotly.

Fred looked up from where he and George were working on something Harry didn't care to pry into the nature of. "Oh, that wasn't a flirt, she's just bouncy," he said. "She's done that to us dozens of times."

"Trust me, you'd _know_ if she was flirting," George concurred.

Upstairs in the boys' dormitory, Harry and Hermione sat down on the edge of his bed with the tape. Harry commanded it to "Play," and then told it "Advance" over and over to skip to the end where his question would be.

"Now, I _would_ like to hear it," Hermione protested.

"You can hear it later; I want to check my bit first," he said, but the dialogue he heard during the pause caught his attention.

"Is Fawkes okay?" Ginny was asking. "That is, I remember how he was my first year, and next to how he looks now..."

"He's in a perfectly normal condition," Dumbledore replied, "but yes, I fear he is beginning to decline. Rather soon for it, but I haven't been paying him all the attention I should... Probably by the end of term he'll burn out and be a chick again."

"But I guess while he's shedding you can sell these to Ollivander, right?" Ginny jovially suggested.

"I'm afraid he wouldn't give me very much for them," Dumbledore said. "It's sort of an open secret of the wandmaker's trade that only certain very special feathers should be used."

"Really? What kind?"

"Oh, they _are_ tail feathers," Dumbledore said, as if Ginny had been looking Fawkes over, "but ones with a unique quality. Now and again, very rarely, when a phoenix dies and revives, it will return with a special feather amid the down in its tail, one mature in size and... Well, I've seen it only twice, and I don't know that there are proper words to describe it. It glows, not really white but every color at once, so bright that it looks very white."

"I didn't know that about Phoenix Feather wands," Hermione said over the whirring tape.

"It sounds beautiful," breathed Ginny's recorded voice.

"It is very beautiful," Dumbledore told her. "When a Phoenix finally leaves our world, every feather has that light, but I wouldn't suggest attempting to pluck one then. Of course in Fawkes' case it isn't something I'll be there to see..." He trailed off, but presently took a deep breath. "Well, I believe we had wrapped up the interview; I should hardly be keeping you from your team practice boasting about my pet - even though he is so terribly beautiful. Yes, aren't you...?"

"There is one more thing," Ginny said. "This isn't to go in the paper, but Harry just wanted me to ask you why you haven't looked at him lately."

Dumbledore didn't even seem to hear her. Harry's face went hot as the Headmaster continued cooing over Fawkes, who twittered happily at the attention. "Oh, isn't he just the most handsome thing in all the wide world, yes he is..."

"Um... Headmaster...?" Ginny mercifully interrupted the pantomime of kissy noises.

"Hm? Was there something else?"

"Harry asked me to..."

"Oh, yes, yes! I fear I was a bit standoffish with him the last time he wanted to see me... Do tell Harry that he will not have to wait to be admitted to my office in the future."

"Okay, I'll tell him that."

"Have a good practice and a good day, Ginger," Dumbledore said amid the sound of footsteps as if he were showing Ginny to the door - it still struck Harry as bizarre to hear anyone actually address her as "Ginger." Indeed, next thing, he heard the office door close.

Ginny said "stop," and the tape reels froze.

Harry threw himself back on his bed. As Ginny had warned him, Dumbledore had given no answer to his question; had indeed given him practically the same "lemon sherbet" treatment Umbridge had gotten. No wait to be admitted to his office? What could that really mean when it was a nonanswer that Ginny had nonetheless had to badger him to get?

"You went to see Dumbledore?" Hermione asked him.

The tape had caught him in his secret. "Yeah..."

"Did you tell him about Umbridge and that quill after all? Is that why McGonagall-?"

"No, it wasn't that," he insisted - _As if she doesn't know perfectly well who tipped off McGonagall!_ "I wanted to ask him how Sirius was."

"Oh? What did he say?"

"He said everyone in the Order was fine, but that was before Hestia Jones disappeared. I think she was one of us..."

"Oh..." Hermione said. An awkward silence followed for several moment before she looped back to the more comfortably academic point. "Did you ever know that about Phoenix Feathers for wands?"

"No. Ollivander even sold me one and he never mentioned it," he said. In fact, when Dumbledore had said that he'd only seen such feathers twice, Harry knew what had become of each one: one was in his own wand, and the other was in Voldemort's. The fact that he and the Dark Lord had "brother" wands from Fawkes' own tail had saved Harry's life when Voldemort returned.

"Mine, too," Hermione said, oblivious to his musings. "Apple and Phoenix Feather with gold tips; what was it he said...? 'Good general spell wand with a bright, strong nature'...? I wonder if he knows anything about the phoenix the feather came from..."

Harry blinked at her. Was she so oblivious? She hadn't been there when Dumbledore described the brother-wand effect; there was no way for her to know... No, Harry thought, he was the one who'd been sneaking into other people's minds, not the other way around. With a touch of shame, he thought he liked it that way.

"It's probably too late to listen to the whole thing through before class," Hermione mused, picking up the cassette. "If you don't want to, I can just listen to it with Ginny sometime while she's writing it up..."

"That'd be fine," Harry said. "I'll just stow it in my trunk until after dinner..." In part he was just jumping on a chance to hold onto Sirius's handiwork, however briefly, but he saw no problem with the plan and took the tape.

When he opened his trunk to put it in, however, there staring back at him was his Firebolt. Seeing it brought rushing back to him the feel of the air, the blue sky... He came to a hasty decision, put the tape in his pocket, and lifted the broom. "On second thought..."

"What are you doing with that?" Hermione asked in slight alarm.

"I'm not going to fly it, just... Well, I thought it would be a good idea to try myself out on watching Quidditch before the real game, you know, so why not just go out there now?"

"Fine by me..."

"We can take Ginny her tape and... Well, it would be pretty silly to send her up against Draco on a Fourteen Hundred while this is sitting here, now wouldn't it?"

Hermione beamed at him.

* * *

On the way out through the Gryffindor Common room, the Weasley Twins shouted "Way to go Harry!" "Don't get caught!" and he waved the broom at them with a grin. Ginny squealed with joy and kissed Harry several more times - all of them safely away from his mouth - when he handed her the Firebolt and told her that she could borrow it for practices and games. Angelina also landed to shake his hand and thank him. As Ginny took off on the Firebolt, Harry located her worn old satchel sitting on the stands, slipped the cassette into it, and sat down there to guard it while he and Hermione watched.

They caught Ron's eye and waved to him, accidentally causing him to miss a save and be hit by a throw from Katie, who pulled him upright on his broom apologising profusely. The blow must have affected him, though, because from that point on, he fumbled every play so badly that Angelina at length sent him to the stands to collect himself. He sat down at a distance from the two of them, and Hermione made to move closer, but he waved her and Harry away; Harry understood that he wanted his own space to prepare himself to go back to the game.

Meanwhile, Harry at first feared that lending Ginny the Firebolt had been a mistake; the broom was so fast and powerful that she could hardly control it, and she went careening wildly around above the Pitch. By the time they all had to go back inside for lunch, however, she seemed to be getting the knack of it, and when she finally handed it back to Harry, her face glowed with exertion and glee. "That was _fun!_ " she exulted.

Ron gave her the kind of disgusted expression that the proverbial fox must have given the grapes; he walked back with them wearing a downcasted look.

"Sorry," Harry tried, in case Ron was feeling snubbed, "I'd have lent it to you, but it's not really a Keeper broom..."

"No, it's not," Ron grumpingly agreed.

"Yeah, try to fly that thing over to the next hoop and you'd find yourself halfway across the pitch," Seamus remarked. Walking on Ron's other side, Harry couldn't see the look his friend gave in reply to that, but it made Seamus hastily add "Not _you_ you, I mean - 'you' just as a general, uh, you know..."

After lunch, Umbridge's teaching now seemed the most innocuous aspect of her, with no injurious detention promised afterward and everyone thoroughly numb to the weekly House Points bloodletting. Ron must still have been bothered by the Quidditch, though, as this week his Guided Practice - which most of the other students shamelessly paused to watch - took on an unusually joyless and excessive level of fictional savagery. This even though Umbridge hadn't even appointed him as the main character who was supposed to make a spell-casting decision!

That night when they went to bed, Harry fell asleep slowly, all the while hearing Ron toss and turn in the bed beside his. He managed no more than a catnap before a breeze from his bedcurtains and Ron's voice roused him. "Harry? Harry, you awake?"

"Yah..." he managed, dragging himself up. "Can't sleep?"

It was a stupid question; Ron sat down beside him, stiff and tight as an overwound toy. There was a shiver in his voice. "I've never felt more tired or more awake in my whole life," he said. "Was the night before your first game like this?"

"I don't think so, not quite as bad..." Harry said, finding his glasses and putting them on. "To tell you the truth though, I don't remember it very well..."

"Oh, you'd have remembered this," Ron said. "I don't know what to do! I swear, I'm usually good in practice, really, but... But you saw that this morning! At the evening practice it wasn't bad but... Just every now and then I fall apart and I don't know why! What if tomorrow's like that?"

"Then working yourself up over it will make it worse, not better. It's nerves that does it," Harry said offhandedly; he was too tired to consider his words before they came out.

"I know," Ron whimpered. "When I told myself that, then I started working myself up about having nerves and getting nerves about how worked up I was. -Am."

"Look, do you want to get some sleep?" Harry asked.

"I've got to get some sleep," he moaned. "If I don't, then I know I'll be useless but I don't know what to do..."

"Okay, get back into bed," Harry said. As Ron complied and awkwardly pulled the blankets up around himself, Harry found his wand and took the two steps across to his friend's bedside. He touched the wand-tip to Ron's forehead, just as Hermione had done for him after a detention; a simple, harmless spell... " _Morpheosa._ "

In the charm's puff of lavendar smoke, Ron seemed to untighten just slightly, but he blinked up at Harry in the dark. "Didn't take. Try it again."

" _Morpheosa!_ "

"That's getting better," Ron said, finally sounding relaxed. "One more, I think."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Harry shrugged. From what he knew of the Sleeping Charm, it couldn't actually hurt someone no matter how many times it was done, but three might be a bit excessive. Still, letting Ron decide for himself seemed best. " _Morpheosa._ "

"Mmm... thanks, mate..." Ron at last relaxed into his pillow and was snoring by the time Harry had put away his wand and glasses and nestled back into his own bed, hoping that he hadn't just made a mistake.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Eighteen: Rules for the Last Second**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Seventeen_

With the Guided Practice pastiche, I didn't feel like I could just say "We will now perform a scene from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' by Rankin-Bass" but the "not such a loser after all" scene title is a reference to that classically campy Christmas TV special. In it, the evil Winter Warlock (voice of Keenan Wynn) is reduced to tears and immediately becomes Kris Kringle's dear friend when Kris gives him a toy choo-choo train. He loses most of his powers, but later in the program still manages to make the reindeer fly and thus effect the heroes' escape from the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger. As they all fly off into the night, "Winter" exults "I'm not such a loser after all!" -which the grown-up kids at my house always find very amusing.

The more I write Ginny and get a feel for my own version of her, the more I love her. I think it's an important part of her developing character that she acts kind of bouncy and immature ("genki" as the anime fan in me would put it), but in a way filled with genuine positivity and even unconditional love, and in that perhaps a kind of ultimate wisdom. But all of that is of course balanced with a goodly share of sass. Must make a note to let her use her bat-bogey hex at least once this "book"...

At the risk of saying too much, if you fed six pounds of sugar to my Lily, you'd probably create a fair approximation of Ginny. And yes, for a Freudian twist on that last comment, I am playing a certain amount of Harry/Ginny romantic tension on the side of the Harry/Cho thing, but neither Harry nor Ginny is acknowledging it as such yet.

Tonks' shout-out to "Cassy" I thought was good as a reminder of how much older than the characters Tonks is not, but was also a very private homage. Don't worry about it or try to guess it; the only person who needed or was likely to get it already did in beta. I suppose it's kind of dated now, but it stays.

Oh, yes, and in the last few chapters I have managed to lever in the names of the two Mystery Professors - the fact that the Runes and Muggle Studies teachers had never been seen or named as of OotP bothered me, so I rectified it in my own stuff here. I think last time I mentioned the Runes Professor, Kaana; it's prounounced "Kay-nuh" and her first name is Rhiannon, so yes, the Runes teacher does indeed sign correspondence "Prof. R. Kaana" (a shameless joke, but frankly it's no worse than naming a werewolf Remus Lupin). This time mentioned Conrad of Muggle Studies, whose first name is "Ansam" (rhymes with "ransom"); this is kind of a joke, too, but it's based on such a common-sounding name that it would probably be hard to pick up on. It refers to the Roddy McDowall character in the classic Twilight Zone episode "People Are Alike All Over," which strikes me as applicable to the whole "Muggle Studies" concept.

  



	18. Rules for the Last Second

**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

  


 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 **Chapter Eighteen  
 _Rules for the Last Second_**

The next morning, Harry suspected that he _had_ made a serious mistake, although the alternative would surely have been at least as bad. Three sleeping charms kept Ron soundly slumbering so that Harry and Seamus had to bodily haul him out of bed for that morning’s last minute practice before the game in the afternoon. While the other players dragged Ron half-asleep out to the pitch, Harry went down to the kitchens, where Dobby was only too happy to help his friend “Mr. Harry Potter” take some strong tea and coffee out for the team. From Seeker to waterboy could hardly be considered a promotion, Harry thought as he carried his share to the Pitch, but it was nonetheless true that he was happy to be a part of the team in even a small way.

Some black coffee and earthbound exercise brought Ron around enough to get him on his broom, and once he was stationed at his goal, Harry was honestly impressed. Of course there was the occasional desperate or messy save, but he prowled the goal-hoops on his Nimbus Fourteen Hundred watchful as a sentry; only once did Angelina manage to feint him toward the wrong hoop and score a point. Ron’s tall build and red hair were unmistakeable even from the stands; otherwise Harry might have thought he was watching a completely different person than the flustered, bumbling Keeper of the previous morning.

Dobby, who was wearing the colorful socks from Hermione in the context of a wild child-sized outfit, sat next to Harry and watched with a fascinated lack of comprehension. His understanding of Quidditch didn’t go much beyond what a Bludger did, and Harry tried to explain to him the finer points until breakfast, when Angelina led the Gryffindor team inside until it was time for warm-ups; she wanted the players to arrive at the game well-practiced but not exhausted.

The meal naturally took place amid regular outbursts from the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, whether of pride for their own house and team or contempt for their rivals. The Slytherins had put together a mocking song about the Gryffindor team’s Weasley contingent, but it only seemed increase Ron’s wakefulness and focus.

“Don’t let that monster of a broom get away from you, Potter!” Draco Malfoy called across the floor. “Oh, sorry, _Weasley!_ Potter’s the waterboy now.”

“I guess she ought to do it your way!” Ron shot back. “Sit still and wait for the Snitch to fly up your nose!”

His response was an aristocratic but ill-considered nose-in-the-air huff that set the Gryffindor boys to laughing hysterically, much to Draco’s consternation.

The Gryffindor common room was a flurry of activity all morning. Even Hermione forgot about studying and helped make banners and streamers and pennants. After a quick lunch, the players went out to the Pitch for warm-ups. The rest of the house stayed at the table for more excited chatter and sparring with the Slytherins. Harry and Hermione went with the party who fetched all the banners and pennants from Gryffindor Tower while house-mates collected up some of the take-away food that the staff had thoughtfully put on the pre-game lunch menu: bottled pumpkin juice, soft drinks, and tea kept magically hot by the bottles, popcorn, crisps, nuts, bagged sandwiches, and more. At last all paraded out to the Quidditch Pitch laden with snacks and house-pride heraldry.

The flying instructor, Madam Hooch, was the referree, and Professor McGonagall officiated from the scoreboard-box overlooking the Pitch. Lee had now put aside his Newspaper Editor hat and picked up the megaphone of his much older Quidditch Announcer role. Professor Snape was there beside him as Head of Slytherin House, and of course Professor McGonagall was Head of Gryffindor as well as her standard Quidditch-game role of managing the scoreboard and Lee.

Harry wasn’t so accustomed to being bustled about and packed into the stands, and ironically he found it a little overwhelming, especially when Lee on his megaphone acknowledged Harry and the Weasley Twins, and he found himself caught in an excitedly affectionate squeeze of well-wishing housemates. “I know the Gryffindor team really wants to win this year for those three!” Lee called. “Of course the Slytherins really want to win this year too, for... Well, for themselves, I guess, but according to them, that’s really great or something!”

Caught between McGonagall’s unswerving sternness and Snape’s bruised house favoritism, he quickly changed the subject and announced the team roll-calls. Seamus and Andrew Kirke were announced as “Reserve” Beaters, and Ginny — who made an exuberant cartwheel on the Firebolt when Lee called her name — was announced as the “Reserve” Seeker. Harry was actually touched that the team wouldn’t give away his spot.

When Lee called out “Keeper: Ron Weasley!”, Hermione cheered and shot off an impressive spinning twist of red and gold sparks from her wand. Ron saw it, found his friends in the stands, and waved at them — at first energetically, but his arm slowed to a stop in a way that made him look frighteningly uncertain.

“You can do it, Ron!” Harry shouted at him.

Madam Hooch released the four balls with a sounding of her whistle and a roaring cheer from the stands. The players took off, and the game was on. Ginny and Draco rocketted off after the Golden Snitch. Angelina and the other Gryffindor Chasers immediately took charge of the Quaffle and charged the Slytherin goal-hoops. Seamus and Andrew stayed tight to the pack of Chasers and tried to hold a perimeter against attacks by the two Bludgers.

Alicia Spinnet took a shot at the Slytherin goal, but the opposing Keeper, Yao — a burly Asian seventh-year boy with large hands — turned it back, giving his team a chance to make a grab for it. A scuffle ensued as Warrington caught the Quaffle but was immediately struck by a Bludger; Angelina got possession and took advantage of the chaos to confuse Yao and score the first goal of the game: the first Quidditch goal of the school year, which was met with boos and hisses from the Slytherins’ stands, and wild cheers from the rest of the school, especially the Gryffindors. Harry realised that being in the stands might involve cheering himself hoarse.

The next thing, the Quaffle was moving up the pitch. Montague cut sharply across the Gryffindor Chasers paths, giving Warrington a chance to gain some distance; he’d have a clear chance to make a shot — and Harry was horrified to see Ron hovering frozen as the Slytherin Chaser bore down on him. Harry and Hermione shouted to him, but only at the last moment did he come to himself and attempt the save, much too late. The Quaffle sailed through the hoop a metre from his hands.

“It’s his first game, he just needs to get his bearings,” Hermione declared.

“Yeah, that must be it,” Harry said.

As the game continued, however, that optimism proved to be misplaced. A mixture of sympathy for his friend and desire for a Gryffindor win plunged Harry’s heart with almost-physical pain as he watched a clearly-flustered Ron bumble save after save; he had cracked under pressure, just as he’d feared he would. Even Lee, with his megaphone, tried not to remark on it — a courtesy he would not have shown any other house — but Harry could hear a groan in his voice every time the opposing team was lining up a shot. Hermione, however, still cheered Ron on every time the Slytherins came at him, as if she didn’t hold it against him at all.

Harry envied her supportive indifference, but it was no use pretending to share it, and he tried to distract himself by watching the Seekers whenever Slytherin had posession. Ginny circled high above the pitch, making occasional swoops at Snitch sightings, but every time it must have disappeared again. Draco buzzed around and below her trying to give himself a head-start if he saw her go after something — as a Seeker himself, Harry had always been disgusted by such “buzzarding.” Between his slow reactions to Ginny’s movements and the speed of the Firebolt, however, it didn’t seem to be helping Draco much. Once he went after a sighting of his own; Ginny refrained from tailing him, causing the Gryffindor section of the stands to catch their breath, but Harry noticed that she stayed directly above him and kept him in a bird’s eye view. In the end he came back up empty-handed, and the Gryffindors all sighed in relief.

In the battle for the Quaffle, the teams’ Chaser contingents were almost evenly matched — which now put the Slytherins at a disadvantage because, Harry quickly saw, Crabbe and Goyle were every bit the incompetent Beaters Seamus had said they were, and despite this working to the Gryffindors’ advantage, Lee as the announcer showed _them_ no mercy. “—Ooh! Another _brutal_ Bludger hit for Warrington! What the snap was Crabbe doing?? He was _right there!!_ ”

“Why didn’t they get those two on sooner??” the Weasley Twins laughed from nearby in the stands. “We’d have had this team beaten to a bloody pulp by now!”

Seamus and Andrew didn’t have that kind of control of the Bludgers, but were able to protect their own team, a benefit the Slytherins didn’t have. As a result, the Quaffle seemed to arrive at the Slytherins’ goals twice as often, but Yao turned back his share of the shots, whereas the only throw Ron stopped was the one that Warrington flung hard into his stomach in an act of sheer meanness. What it all meant was that the Slytherins’ score climbed faster; they developed a lead against Gryffindor that slowly but inexorably grew. Still, it didn’t matter if Ginny could just catch the Snitch in time; the catch would end the game with a bonus of one hundred fifty points, so if Ginny could catch it before the Slytherins pulled that far ahead...

But the opposing team seemed to realise it, too. Montague flew up to Crabbe and Goyle in turn and said something to them, at which point they stopped even trying to keep the Bludgers off their team. The Slytherin Chasers seemed more harried but almost more effective, dodging the Bludgers entirely on their own with no false illusions of someone guarding them, and meanwhile Crabbe and Goyle flew off to do what they did best: act as Malfoy’s thugs.

Montague must have seen that a Snitch Catch by Gryffindor was the main threat now — Harry realised with revulsion that he had ordered his Beaters off to stop Ginny! His face burned despite the November air to watch Malfoy and his cronies circle around and around her, fencing her in, giving chase and harassing her when she tried to break away from them. Worse yet, after seeing the Slytherin team trials, Harry knew Crabbe and Goyle would use those beater sticks if they thought they could get away with it...

It was agonising to watch; the Seekers’ now-dreadful game-within-the-game went on and on as the Slytherin lead inched higher and higher. Ron tried and tried, but his frustration was unmistakeable even from the stands as goal after goal got past him. Angelina and the rest of the team’s best efforts only made it more slow and painful. Gryffindor was at one hundred ten now, Slytherin at two hundred forty; two more goals and Gryffindor would be doomed.

Ginny must have been aware of the score; she darted quickly around, chafing at the barrier Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were forming around her...

Another Slytherin goal went in. Amid the Gryffindors’ groans was an audible cry of despair.

Harry kept his eyes on Ginny. _Come on... Come on...!_

She had had enough. With a final wheel around between her captors, she bowed low over the Firebolt like a torpedo and aimed it straight up — straight at Draco! Harry actually heard him scream in fright as he dodged her charge but then realised she might be seeing the Snitch and gave chase. Thus feinted, he tore past her as she slowed herself and looked back, then she arced the Firebolt downward, and it fell like a stone, tip-first.

Harry caught his breath. Could she have flown too high or too fast and gotten faint? No, she was still crouched purposefully on the broom... Then Harry saw it. Off to the side of Ron’s goal-hoops, near to the ground, a little golden sparkle. Draco noticed it too and finally pulled out of his climb, but he was far behind; Ginny still rocketed toward the ground at high speed. Harry half-rose from his seat despite himself, and he wasn’t alone in doing so. _Don’t crash!!_

In seemingly the last yard, the Firebolt bobbed back up. The Chasers were at the other side of the pitch; the area was clear as Ginny darted like a minnow this way and that, mere feet above the ground. She was reaching even below the broom; Harry saw her start to slip — _Don’t fall!_

She stopped moving, dangling from the broom by her knees and hugging her chest; her long braids lay on the ground but her head didn’t touch it. With her knees around the Firebolt, she was able to turn it slowly so that she came to face the Gryffindor stands.

Harry was already grinning broadly when she extended her hand holding the struggling golden ball. She called out barely audible with distance: “Got it!” The cheer her small voice touched off in the Gryffindor stands, however, was deafening, drowning out even Madam Hooch’s whistle.

Draco belatedly caught up to her just as she righted herself on the broom with a great swing of her arms — which brought the fist gripping the Snitch crashing straight into Draco’s face. The Gryffindors roared with laughter as he fell off his broom, and it only set them off again when Ginny’s visible attitude of apology was met with a scream of _“Don’t touch me you little HAG!”_

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lee called out from his megaphone, “I know how you feel but we’re not quite done.”

“Wha?” Harry stared at the announcers’ box; the Snitch was caught; what was left to do?

“We have to make calls on some possible fouls,” Lee admitted grudgingly to the audibly-disappointed crowd. “As it stands, there’s only a ten-point difference; one penalty shot could tie this thing, and let’s see...” He lowered the megaphone from his face and leaned over to Professor Snape for a moment before announcing through it again: “We need calls on possible Flying To Collide, Contact With The Ground, and, ah... Punching Malfoy in the nose,” he finished, not managing to suppress a snigger.

Harry had to admit that it all had ended in a mess, but he fell back into his seat feeling half-sick. If the Slytherins got to make a penalty shot against Ron... Leave it to Snape to yank away their victory on a technicality!

“Okay,” Lee called, “Professor McGonagall says she might be biased, so she hands me the rulebook — like I’m not?? You wanna look at this, Professor?” he added more softly, proffering the book to Snape. Watching McGonagall and hearing the slightest echo of her through the megaphone, Harry was sure that she was reciting section and page for the other two.

“Let’s see...” Lee flipped a number of pages. “Contact With The Ground... ‘Applies to all parts of the broom but not to trailing portions of players’ hair or robes,’ so Weasley should be good there. No word on players’ undergarments, though.”

The again-tightly-wound Gryffindor stands relaxed a notch and managed a round of nervous laughter.

More page-flipping. “Flying To Collide is, er, ‘flying with intent to collide,’ so I guess we’ll have to ask her...”

Madam Hooch shook her head from the pitch, where the two Seekers were now yelling at each other as Draco clutched his nose.

“So no intent to collide! Good! —I mean good that we know one way or the... ah...” Lee trailed off as Snape loomed over his shoulder. “Anyway, the punch to the nose...”

McGonagall directed them to one more page number; Lee turned to it under Snape’s watchful eyes. “Ah, yes, the ‘Rules for the Last Second’,” he read. “’After the Snitch is Caught: A goal may still be counted if the Quaffle is already . . .’ blah blah blah... Ah! ‘Penalty shots for fouls committed before the catch are to be taken and to be counted if they succeed; however, as fouls committed after the moment of the catch cannot benefit the offending player’s team, no penalty shot is awarded to the fouled player.’ So there we have it?” he said.

A moment’s pause, then Snape offered a sour, grudging nod.

“ _ **YES!!!** _ ” Lee roared into the megaphone, giving both officiating professors a jolt. “ _ **WE WON!! WE WON!!** _ —Oh, I mean _**GRYFFINDOR WON!!!** _ ”

Harry leapt to his feet along with the rest of the Gryffindor stands in a triumphant cheer not lessened by the delay. As their team made a victory lap, Ginny waved at Harry with the Snitch in her hand, but Ron was nowhere to be seen.

  


* * *

  


Harry and Hermione searched even as their cheering housemates poured out of the stands and back toward the castle, taking the rest of the team with them, but Ron was still missing, and a search of the pitch came up empty. At last they found him in Hagrid’s hut, being served a cup of tea which didn’t seem to be helping very much. When Harry and Hermione entered, he slunk under Hagrid’s table to avoid their eyes. It took them until dinner time to coax him into returning to the castle and facing the other students, and even at that he just fled up to Gryffindor Tower and asked Harry to bring him something.

In the great hall, Ginny was the center of attention, but Harry also got such a warm reception that he had trouble breaking away when the festivities moved upstairs to the Gryffindor Common Room. He at last managed to escape to the dorm to deliver some stew for Ron, who was holed up behind his bedcurtains.

Harry set the food on the bedside table. “Come on, it could happen to anybody,” he said coaxingly. “I mean, actual games are just a bit crazy. You don’t really get that in practice...”

“No,” came Ron’s disembodied voice from behind the curtains.

“You’ll be more ready for it next time.”

“...Any advice about showing my face until then...?”

Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Well you can show it to me; I won’t bite it off.”

The bedcurtains rustled. Harry smiled with bemused compassion as Ron finally pulled them open a crack and looked out. “See? Nothing struck you dead,” Harry said.

“Yeah...” Ron admitted, looking back at him. “Yeah, I guess it could be worse...”

 _At least_ _**you** _ _weren’t out there showing me up._

Harry’s face fell as Ron’s voice slid across his mind. His back stiffened; it felt as if someone had poured cold water down it and into his stomach. “I should go,” he said suddenly, turning away. “I mean, get back downstairs before somebody comes up after me or something...”

“Harry...?” Ron queried as he hurried away, but Harry didn’t pause on his way to the door, and when he left the dorm he shut it behind him a little harder than he had intended.

“How is he?” Hermione asked Harry as he arrived in the common room again.

“He’ll be okay.”

“Seems silly to get so miserable over a game,” she said.

No one else could hear their conversation over the general noise of the victory party. All the banners and streamers the house had made for the game were now tacked onto the walls. There was butterbeer all around, and Harry quickly came to suspect that some of the seventh-years may have seasoned theirs with something stronger.

“I couldn’t believe it!” someone was shouting. “All those last-minute calls — that’s Snape for you.”

“He probably knew none of them were good, he just wanted to take the air out of us...” Seamus ventured.

“Still, I have to say I’d want McGonagall to stick up for us in the same situation,” Katie argued.

Angelina had accepted a drink from Fred and weighed in a bit too loudly. “Yes, but I wouldn’t have set my Beaters on the other team’s Seeker! That was low!”

“It didn’t really help them in the end, though.”

“Yes, it did,” she grumped. “If they end up tying us for Games Won, it’ll go to the point totals...”

“Oh, I _can’t_ see that happening,” Lee opined. “Here’s to the Quidditch season anyway! At least I’ll have games to announce. It’s not like I’ll have a _newspaper_ after Monday...”

“What do you mean? What’s the matter?” Hermione asked him.

“Oh, it was good while it lasted. At least we can give Umbridge one last fit...”

“Harry! Harry,” Ginny hurried over to him with the Firebolt in her hands. “Here you go. Thanks for letting me borrow it!”

“Well you did a great job flying it,” he said.

“Smile you two!” Colin called to them. “I want a picture of both of you holding it!”

Harry and Ginny posed for the photograph; she hugged the broom-handle, leaving him to take a grip closer to the tip. If he tried to put his other hand on it, he bumped shoulders with her awkwardly, so he had to put that hand behind her, which was a bit awkward itself...

“Give her bunny ears, Harry!” George called as Colin finally took the snap. Ginny stuck out her tongue, which made George’s suggestion seem in keeping, so Harry held up two fingers behind her head, and Colin could certainly not be blamed for getting that picture, too.

“We’ll use _that_ one for the paper!” Lee declared.

“Go on, I dare you!” Ginny shot back. She changed tacks before Harry could protest. “Do you want me to take it upstairs for you?”

“No, no...” he said, then lowered his voice. “I... ah... don’t think Ron wants to see anyone...”

* * *

Unfortunately, no one much wanted to see Ron, either. No one wanted to condemn him as he’d feared they would, but still there was no denying that he had nearly cost Gryffindor the game singlehandedly, and it seemed that for many of Harry’s housemates, the only tactful approach to Ron at the moment was to avoid or ignore him.

Not so with Hermione. Throughout Sunday, he had yet to venture out of the dorm, and Hermione brought him meals and tried to encourage him, but without much success as, Harry thought, she obviously didn’t understand what Ron was going through. She never really had understood sports. Still, Harry hardly had room to criticise her; after catching the thought that “at least you weren’t out there showing me up,” he had unfortunately fallen into the “tactful avoidance” crowd, albeit for his own unique reason.

Harry did have at least one way to distract himself, though; after Lee’s broad hint at the party, he thought that Sunday night would be his last chance to see the Hogwarts X-Press staff in action. It was also the first issue in months that was printed when Ginny didn’t have to be at Quidditch Practice the following morning, so Harry went with her to the Transfiguration room, where he found another party. There was no banner on the wall proclaiming “Our Final Issue,” but the whole staff knew it, and they were going out in a blaze of glory and festivity.

“McGonagall kept a pretty tight leash on us last week, said the staff were trying to get some things worked out,” Lee explained. “This week, though, she said it was our choice, so better to die free than live in slavery, that’s what I say...”

“Ginny really got a scoop for the last interview, didn’t she?” Colin remarked.

“It was _his_ idea,” Ginny admitted, still a bit incredulous.

“I bet he knew it’d be his last chance,” Harry said, “that you weren’t going to back down and give Umbridge a break.”

“We finally got enough people from the old clubs together to shut Marietta up about ‘lack of corroboration,’ too. That’s the headline this time,” Dean said. He held up the draft front page, splashed with the words “Save Our S.O.S.!”

“She actually was making people sign loyalty oaths?” Harry asked. He tried to be incredulous, but after her detention attempts to physically batter him into signing a confession, he couldn’t manage disbelief at this.

“She didn’t call them that, but yeah,” Ginny answered. “And the president of Save Our Snidgets wouldn’t sign, so the endangered Emerald Flooper will have to manage without us kids, I guess...”

“But you wanna see the _real_ coffin nail?” Lee asked brightly.

“’Coffin nail’? Wha?”

“Okay, so _you_ didn’t write it...” Lee retrieved a roll of parchment from the matrix near Dean and Colin.

“We’re going to need that,” Dean protested.

“Oh, Harry can read it first; we’ve got time.” He handed Harry the scroll.

Harry unrolled it; it was a lengthy letter to the editor in a sort of blank handwriting — not the frighteningly perfect script Umbridge used, but the way a dictating quill might write. What this one had written was a lengthy and well-organised essay, the most direct and substantial indictment of Dolores Umbridge as both Professor and Senior Field Minister that Harry had yet seen. Even all the previous student complaints had mainly niggled at the surface of Umbridge’s philosophy; this one cut mercilessly to its heart. This author had not forgotten last year’s end of term feast, and did not shy away from the issue of “You-Know-Who’s” possible return; whether it was true or not, however, became a secondary issue as Umbridge and the Ministry behaved like people desperate not to investigate the question, not like defenders or even seekers of the truth. In a word, they acted _fearful_ . The essayist deftly tied Umbridge’s every flaw back to the theme of fear: fear of Voldemort of course, but the Slinkhard textbook, Harry now agreed with the letter, feigned compassion as a cover for fear: fear of those living or thinking outside its narrow frame, fear of the ugliness people — including “the right sort of people” — could be capable of, fear of the differences that could drive them too far apart for a bouquet to bridge the gap. And fear, the letter concluded, must surely be the most dangerous emotion; Anger and hatred can destroy anything on which they set their sights, but Fear destroys everything in its path.

“Wow,” Harry said at last. “I can see what you mean about a coffin nail, but... Wow.”

Lee took the scroll from him and passed it to Dean to be set up for printing. “That had to go in. McGonagall’s sure we’ll be shut down for it, but it’s just got to be said.”

“Yeah, it does.” Harry was suddenly awash in respect for Lee and indeed the whole newspaper staff at such a brave stand — not to mention the anonymous author. “So you have no idea who wrote it?”

“No; somebody just handed it to McGonagall with my name on it, and she won’t say who she got it from.”

Harry’s mind immediately went into a buzz of questioning possible suspects. Written as if with a dictating quill — come to think of it, what had Hermione wanted at Scrivenshaft’s? He’d been too distracted by the Cutting Quill in their case to notice what she had finally bought...

This time Harry did stay for the entire process, even helping Kelley and Legantine collate pages, and he was rewarded in one very welcome, unexpected way: since for the first time the printing was being done with class the next day, McGonagall had secured passes excusing everyone who worked on it from Monday morning classes. Although Harry was still struggling to catch up from the Catalytical Potion debacle, being excused from Potions was too great a temptation to resist. —A shame, he thought, that this was the last issue and thus the opportunity would not come again.

Once the papers had been printed and stacked, face down to hide the subversive content under a crossword of spell incantations, the students deferred taking them down to the great hall, fearing that somehow Umbridge would be alerted and spirit them off before anyone could read them; they bided their time until breakfast was just about to begin. Harry now doubted that the excuse from class would get him a decent amount of sleep, especially since he didn’t want to miss Creatures with Hagrid, but he wasn’t about to cut out now as they all sat around chatting, even though the sky was turning pale outside the windows and the lack of sleep was beginning to fuzz his brain as if he’d had a nip of the twins’ suspicious butterbeer.

Dean had settled in at a desk with some scrap parchment and was busily drawing a picture. The two first-year girls went to work on that back-page crossword and occasionally popped up with questions. Ginny fell asleep in Professor McGonagall’s chair, and Harry draped her with his cloak and wheeled her to the quietest corner of the room.

“Reversed Gravity, two words,” Kelley queried.

“ _Decido Capita_ ,” Lee answered blithely.

Maybe the crossword wouldn’t pass Field Ministry muster after all, Harry thought. He helped himself to a paper as well and opened it to the coverage of the Quidditch game, but Lee had had time for only a bare-bones report, and Harry soured at a glance over Montague’s lengthier piece, which must have tested McGonagall’s rule against “attacks on a particular student” with its treatment of Ron and referred to the Gryffindor Seeker only as “The Firebolt,” never as Ginny or even “Weasley.” Harry finally just stuffed it in his bag to read later. At least the paper’s demise meant no more Slytherin House page and no more Montague on sports.

A thought occurred to him, with all of them here killing time so as not to give Umbridge any. “Say,” he wondered, “did the printing actually run late, that time with the drama club?”

Lee considered it. “Mmmmm.... No.” He took a deep breath and rose from his chair. “So, is it about that time, everybody? Somebody ought to set a stopwatch, from the time they hit the tables to the time the announcement goes up...”

“Wait, wait,” Dean interjected, still leaned over and making a few last marks on his bit of parchment. “Just let me... There! I want to see what you all think of this...”

They all turned to look at him with eyes in varying degrees of bleariness. He held up his drawing for all of them to see.

It was a new newspaper title image. Whereas the original one had been based on the real Hogwarts Express with its old-fashioned steam engine, this picture showed a sleek, modern, bullet-nosed train zipping through a subterranean tunnel. Speed lines poured off of the words lettered on its side:

 ** _///THE HOGWARTS UNDERGROUND//—_**

The whole room stood in a silence of fatigue mixed with awe. In the pause, Ginny could be heard snoring and resettling herself in the corner. It was Harry who finally spoke:

“I like it!”

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Nineteen: Tapping, Again**_

* * *

 _Author's Notes on Chapter Eighteen_

Don’t anybody get too excited; I’m posting chapters 18 and 19 (which I have had drafts of for an embarrassingly long time — you’ll soon find out just how embarrassing), as well as chapters 31-33 on the Fushigi Yuugi Mirrorverse, to celebrate my debut at Ao3, but then I’ll have to go on indefinite hiatus. Er, like usual...

I enjoyed writing the Quidditch game more than I expected. I may have tweaked the rules of the game for my own purposes, but wth...

Poor Ron, though. There is in fact a pattern to when he chokes up at Quidditch. I suspect you’re already picking up on it, but Ron won’t for some time. —Oh, and pop quiz: who else do we know who is having issues with showing Harry his face? ... Good! I knew you were paying attention! ^__^

I was saying to my supportive beta-reader when I first drafted this that I was having trouble achieving, on the one hand, a constant state of “OMGVoldemort!” threat, and on the other having trouble with anything really mean and petty like the interhouse bickering, so the end result is perhaps a bit blandly domestic compared to the books, but she assured me she liked it that way...


	19. Tapping, Again

**Harry Potter  
and the  
Secret Prophecy**

 _Alternate Universe Remix  
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars_

 

 **Chapter 19  
 _Tapping, Again_**

After helping to carry the heavy stacks of papers down to the great hall just in time for breakfast, Harry had to admit defeat, and admit too that handling any of Hagrid’s favorite animals while seriously sleep deprived would not have flown as a suggestion in Professor Grubbly-Plank’s safety lecture, so he asked Hermione to give Hagrid his explanation and apology, and he went upstairs and collapsed at last into bed.

Only at lunchtime, over strong tea, did he find out how the Hogwarts X-Press’s ultimate issue had fared. Colin had managed to stay awake with a stopwatch, and he had measured an impressive forty-three minutes from the time the newspaper staff deposited their labors on the four house tables to the time the parchment appeared on the announcements board:

 _“Be it known henceforth:_

 _“For the duration of the Educational Emergency, the content of all Hogwarts student publications are subject to review by the Senior Field Minister for Education and by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor.”_

Apparently Umbridge was developing a delusion of actually being two separate people, although to any Hogwarts student, Senior Field Minister Umbridge and High Inquisitor Umbridge were indistinguishable. Also in evidence, Hermione pointed out, was a perhaps-related delusion that the word “content” was a plural.

Lee and the rest of the Hex’s staff, however, may well have had the best possible revenge. Even before the fatal forty-three minutes had elapsed, so Harry was told, this issue was the most avidly read and discussed thing that had hit the school yet. Dumbledore’s interview was surprisingly bland; the discussion Harry had heard on the tape about Fawkes’ feathers was perhaps the most interesting part, and the only subversive thing in it was an oblique “I stand by what was said,” when Ginny brought up last year’s end-of-term feast and Voldemort’s return. The “coffin nail” editorial had struck the chord; reading it provided many with a moment of “eureka!”, a name and face for the malaise they had been feeling but only murkily understood, and by the end of the day, it seemed most students knew choice bits of the piece by heart.

“I wonder if we’ll ever know who wrote it,” Hermione remarked, re-reading it again over dinner.

“Like you don’t know already,” Harry replied with a narrow-eyed smirk.

“You don’t think it was _me?_ ”

“Well,” Ron said, “whoever it was _did_ use the word ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ in a sentence.”

“Now, that one’s really not hard if you break it down,” she argued.

For the first time since the Quidditch game, Harry and Ron shared a knowing glance and gave her a concerted look.

“Oh, come on!” George broke in. “You guys are blaming her for everything lately!”

“To hear you talk, she’s just about cutting into _our_ action,” Fred added. “That’ll be the day...”

* * *

As the week continued, Snape made Harry pay dearly for his excuse from class. In the lab, he called Harry to the front of the room to singlehandedly demonstrate the concoction described in Monday morning’s lecture — which Harry, having missed it, was at a total loss about. Hermione tried to subtly sign to him and got him through the first few steps before Snape noticed and ordered her out to stand in the hall. “And be glad I’ll let this shameful bit of academic dishonesty off at only that!” he pronounced.

Harry watched her go with forlorn desperation. What was he supposed to do now?? It seemed to be a variation on a Stone Bending Potion, so maybe Black Glass next...? Snape glared over him impassively, but when he touched the jar of pepper-gray granules, someone on the Slytherin side of the room squelched a laugh. _Okay, that’s not right..._ Meanwhile the potion was bubbling fast and changing color.

“Whatever you’re going to add, Mr. Potter, I suggest you do it soon,” Snape warned.

 _Then tell me what you want me to do, you—!!!_ Harry was breathing hard in frustration; he’d had enough of Snape playing these tricks just to humiliate him, and there was nothing else to do. He glared straight into the teacher’s eyes. _**What do you want me to do!?**_

The next moment, he hardly knew what had happened. Completely unlike any of the times he had gone into people’s eyes before, this attempt sent his mind sliding endlessly over a perfectly rigid, perfectly smooth, perfectly opaque surface, as if he were trying to find a way into a ball bearing that only spun round and round under his fingers.

“ _ **This**_ , perhaps?” Snape snarled, proffering an apothecary jar and snapping Harry back to reality.

Off-balance from the experience, Harry numbly took the container and ladled out a dollop of the smelly, slimy, green-and-gray lumps inside. Seconds after they disappeared into the cauldron, the potion turned a sickly greenish brown and sprouted huge toadlike bubbles. Two of the largest burst at once, releasing a black mist with an odor so foul that one breath sent Harry dashing for the door, clutching his mouth to hold back his vomit.

He slammed the door behind him; through it he heard the entire class groan at the smell and the teacher crow “...And _that_ is why you must be certain your pickled slugs are truly gangrenous and have not merely gone off.”

“Are you okay?” Hermione asked, still waiting there where Snape had ordered her.

Harry shook his head; he didn’t dare open his mouth.

For the rest of class, he and Hermione waited in the hallway. The professor never called them back in, and not only was Harry still struggling to control his roiling stomach, he saw no point in returning and hardly any point in returning to Potions class ever again. At this rate he was sure to flunk this year; what would happen then? He didn’t mention his concerns to Hermione, not because he feared she wouldn’t have constructive suggestions, but because he knew that she would and didn’t care at the moment to be on the receiving end of plans for an elaborate study regimen.

At last he heard the other students shuffling loose from class. Ron was the first out the door, carrying Harry and Hermione’s bags, but right behind him came Draco Malfoy.

“Now Potter, when I made that Potions Marks crack on the train, I didn’t intend you to take it as a challenge!” Draco laughed.

Harry turned to attempt a retort, but when he took a breath, a hint of the failed potion’s stink had wafted out the door and reached him, perhaps not enough for someone else to notice, but for Harry, who had spent the last hour and a half battling its effects, one more faint whiff was more than his stomach could take. It doubled him over, and Draco was standing too close...

Draco’s scream made it all seem worth it, even when Filch made Harry clean up the mess himself with a mop.

* * *

Umbridge’s new rules didn’t officially shut the paper down, but Lee shrugged off suggestions that he continue. He along with most of the staff resigned rather than work under Umbridge’s oversight, although neither of the reporters did so. Marietta declared that she didn’t see what all the huff was about; after all, they’d always had McGonagall looking over their shoulder, so what was so different about this? Ginny, on the other hand, insisted that Umbridge would have to sack her from the Hex before she would leave it.

As soon as the next issue went into production, with Umbridge herself as both faculty sponsor and interim editor, Ginny got her wish, but when the resulting paper hit the tables, it was a scrawny thing that no one much cared to read except the Slytherins, who found an echoing chamber for their delusions of grandeur in Montague’s now-sole proprietorship of the Sports page, while the “Potter is a Twerp” column at last became a reality. Harry saw no reason to read the snipes; he would hear them all soon enough...

In weeks to come, the Hex did give one dying spark of glory when Umbridge’s paper came out with the title image altered to read not “The Hogwarts X-Press” but “Hogwarts’ Ex-Press.” Susan Bones, whom Umbridge had kept on as proofreader, admitted to the “E” — “so that it would finally be spelled like the train,” she innocently claimed — but she could not account for the missing “The” or the possessive apostrophe and was sacked. On the occasion of such a reverse, the atmosphere at the Hufflepuff table was surprisingly festive, but Lee still went to give Susan his condolences on more than one occasion. From then on the paper was referred to by most, on the increasingly-rare occasions when it came up at all, not as “the Hex” but as “the Ex.”

Meanwhile, Dean was still refining his new title image, and versions of it were surreptitiously circulating around the school. No one quite knew what to do about them yet, but Hermione checked out a copy of A History of Magical Publishing and Pamphleteering from the library in search of possibilities.

For the most part, however, the end of Lee’s Hogwarts X-Press robbed the school of a major source of vitality, beyond what a newspaper would seem to explain. Hermione engrossed herself in homework and personal research, Ron had been standoffish and avoided Harry’s eyes ever since the day of the near-disastrous Quidditch game, and Harry began to feel quite alone. Maybe without the paper and the reassuringly argumentative student voices of its editorial page, everyone was feeling rather more alone.

November dribbled on like that, increasingly frigid, and turned gray and black without snowing. Even the remaining Quidditch game of the semester was a miserable affair, especially for the Hufflepuffs. They played against Ravenclaw, and after finding his first game as a spectator surprisingly enjoyable, Harry decided to attend this one and watch Cho. However, as the game wore on and on into the afternoon, it was clear that playing Cedric’s old team left her a bit shaken. The Hufflepuffs, for their part, had not a single incompetent player among them, but _as_ Cedric’s old team, they all seemed to be still in shock. The Ravenclaw Chasers outscored them by an agonising two hundred ten points before, after a four-hour game which most of the spectators had already abandoned, Cedric’s successor as Hufflepuff Seeker caught the Snitch just to put his own team out of its misery.

Cho did catch Harry afterward, however. She shook her silken black hair down out of its ponytail, and they sat in the stands, bundled up in their winter robes and chatting even after everyone else had left. The Hufflepuffs had deserved the Snitch that time at least, they agreed, and Cho thanked him for coming, realising that it must be difficult to watch Quidditch when he couldn’t play. Somehow she had gotten confused and thought he’d been grounded for standing up to Umbridge the first week of class; he grinned when he explained that it was actually for turning Snape into a canary. Cho didn’t find that amusing as most of Harry’s friends would, but she didn’t think any less of him for speaking out at the cost of five detentions instead, even though he preferred not to show her his arm or explain the details. Finally they made plans to meet at Madam Puddifoot’s in the village on the next Hogsmeade weekend, which was coming up shortly before Christmas Holiday. Only after they had gone their separate ways back in the castle for dinner did it dawn on Harry that he had never been to Madam Puddifoot’s and didn’t know where it was, but he was sure he could find it.

That evening everyone in Gryffindor tower teased Harry about his “girlfriend,” but somehow it failed to annoy him. The way he and Cho had sat and talked... They’d even made a date in the village! She _was_ his girlfriend! Surely he had the right to say that, and basking in its glow, he thought nothing could annoy him anymore.

That was until everyone else had moved on to their own business and Hermione at last emerged from her pile of books and sat down next to him. “Harry, I wanted to talk to you, about you and Cho...”

“Hm?” he looked up from a head-shaking snigger at his Defense reading.

“Just, be careful with her, okay?” Hermione said.

“What do you mean, ‘be careful’?”

“Well, that is, you’re both nice people, but she’s got some problems, you know?”

Harry stiffened in vicarious defense. “What ‘problems’??”

“A lot’s happened to her lately,” Hermione said. “It’s just... Well, she’s not over Cedric.”

He swatted it away with an “Oh, come on!” but for the first time since last year, the feeling of jealousy and rivalry sparked inside him. Now that Cedric was dead, it felt sickening.

“It’s as plain as the nose on her face, she’s not over him!” Hermione pressed on obliviously. “I know she really appreciates that you tried to help and that you... well, that you brought him back, but if she’s still hurt and she wants to be with somebody, well... Maybe she thinks she appreciates it more than she really does, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I _don’t_ know what you mean!” Harry snapped, even though he really did. “When did you become the expert, anyway? I suppose one dance with Krum taught you everything there is to know!”

“Oy, what’s going on over here?” Ron asked, finally attracted to the scuffle. He looked at Hermione, not Harry.

But she ignored him. “He actually _is_ very intelligent when people aren’t pestering him about Quidditch,” she insisted of her last year’s Yule Ball escort, the Triwizard Champion of Durmstrang and Bulgarian Quidditch star Viktor Krum. “But he’s got nothing to do with this. I’m just trying to tell you to be careful because I don’t want either of you to get hurt! I’ve got eyes and brains and feelings — I think that’s two points ahead of you when you’re head over heels!”

“Go back to the books, Hermione,” Harry grumped. “This one needs more research.”

“Fine! Fine, don’t listen to me, just find out your own way...” She stormed back to her nest of books in a huff; Ron gave Harry only a flick of a sidelong glance before following her.

After all, they’d been half-abandoning him lately anyway, Harry thought. It must grate on them that they couldn’t just leave him all alone anymore. Probably they were nothing more than jealous...

* * *

That Thursday, the last day of November, Hermione raised her hand in Charms and asked about a spell she had seen mentioned in A History of Magical Publishing and Pamphleteering but couldn’t find in any of the Standard Books of Spells...

“A Copying Charm,” she queried. “Ah... _‘Facsimilate’_?”

“Oh, yes!” Professor Flitwick said brightly. “A most useful spell, sadly not in the latest editions of the textbooks. Some of the newer enchanted quills and such are supposed to have made it obsolete, but I don’t agree at all. If you’ll all open your books to any page you please and find some scraps of parchment... Let’s see if I have some for you to use...”

The professor happily instructed them to lay the scraps over the print in their books and to say “ _Facsimilate!_ ” with a swish of the wand and a quick tap on the parchment. The spell caused every mark on the page to rise up to the surface of the parchment scrap while remaining untouched beneath, producing a perfect copy.

Hermione tried to contain herself until the evening, thinking the great hall an unsafe place to talk, but Dean and Seamus couldn’t wait, and at lunch the Gryffindor table was alive with whispers. A way to copy and distribute a paper without access to the presses! If they could somehow teach the Copying Charm to the entire school, then every student could make their own copy from that of a classmate — and teaching everyone the spell shouldn’t be hard, Ron pointed out, given how happy Flitwick had been to share it; just get the word to everyone to raise their hands in his class.

Indeed, Friday afternoon saw Umbridge in a foul mood unimproved by Ron’s now-traditional mischief. By then a half-dozen more classes knew the Copying Charm, and Umbridge’s attempts over dinner to curb Professor Flitwick came to naught. He patiently argued that students who wanted to know a spell would only make worse messes trying to teach it to themselves if he didn’t oblige them, and besides, what could a Copying Charm hurt? Mightn’t it be useful to the students in study and research? Not only Professor McGonagall came over to weigh in on Flitwick’s side, but also Madam Pince: “I’ve been finding torn-out pages ever since they took that out of the Goshawk books! I say Filius should teach it to first-years as a matter of course!”

That reminded Harry of his own recent temptation to steal a page out of the library, and he went there after the meal and got out the yearbooks from his parents’ school careers again. It took some practice to successfully lift a photograph with the copying charm, but before long he was able to do it in full motion and color, and he copied several duelling league photos and the Gryffindor Quidditch pictures that had his father in them, as well as the pictures of his parents from the House galleries, and also Sirius and Lupin, although it was somehow more uncomfortable seeing those two as innocently smiling young boys instead of their present careworn selves. At least he could distract himself by watching Lupin’s ponytail progress from a first little puff third year to achieving sixth year something like its current state except unsilvered. In the next book after that, he copied the page near the front picturing James Potter and Lily Evans as Head Boy and Head Girl, although he thought his father seemed strangely grave in that picture. One flip of a page told him why; just before that, at the head of that yearbook, he found another photo of the “Henrietta” whom he thought must have been his aunt — or who would have been. The page contained only a photo of her with her name and a fatal pair of dates, “March the Eighteenth, Nineteen Sixty-Six ~ August the Second, Ninteen Seventy-Seven.” Feeling a little sick, he made a copy of that page, too, but at that he couldn’t continue any longer and put the books away. The Nineteen Forty-Two yearbook was still there, with the photo of Tom Riddle inside, but just a look at the spine and the memory of that picture sent Harry fleeing from the library. When he got back to Gryffindor tower, he went upstairs to change out of his school robes and pack all the Facsimilated photographs away in his trunk.

More pieces of the underground newspaper puzzle fell into place when he had come back down and settled in the common room. For ease of distribution, Lee and the other former Hex staffers were already deciding on a single-page format for the Hogwarts Underground —

“What’ll we call, that?” Fred questioned. “’The Hug’?”

“Why not?” Ginny said.

“It’s scary, but you know, ‘give me a hug’ could actually work as a cover...” Lee realised.

“Sorry I asked...”

Neville unexpectedly spoke up. “One page at a time, that’s still going to be a lot of parchment. Where will everybody get that much extra? Won’t it look suspicious?”

“Well, this would be a more dangerous spell to teach everybody,” Harry said, “but I saw Umbridge use a memory charm to...” He trailed off, remembering that everyone in the room already knew about his arm, which by now had healed but with a such a vivid scar that he might never be able to wear short sleeves again. “That’s how she blanked the parchment between tries, when she was making me do the lines over and over with that Cutting Quill.”

“So all we have to do is find something worthless that we can erase to reuse the parchment,” Lee surmised. A slow grin of vindictive satisfaction spread across his face and gave way to a lordly laugh. “I love poetic justice!”

That night brought a thick blanket of December snow, and the following morning, Umbridge’s Hogwarts X-Press was for the first time a success.

* * *

That weekend, students ventured out in their heavy cloaks and scarves for snowball fights and snow-sculptures.

Harry had begun counting the days until the Hogsmeade weekend — only one week away now! — and also until Christmas Holiday, when he was sure that someone who knew the secret would take him back to Sirius’s house and he could spend the break with his godfather. At the least, anyone he could get hold of from the Order who refused to take him there for Christmas was going to end up sorry, so he didn’t sign up on McGonagall’s list of students spending the holiday at Hogwarts when it came around on Monday.

That night he went to bed as more fat flakes of snow sifted down past the window. Magic or no magic, the castle’s stone walls were always cold this time of year, making a night’s sleep under thick blankets more inviting than ever. This one was cut short, though, at some indeterminate midnight hour.

 _  
**tap-tap-tap! tap-tap-tap!**   
_

Harry resisted waking up at the sound. His dreaming mind connected it with that summer, with Professor Lupin tapping on his window, and he finally had to rouse himself somewhat to make certain he wasn’t bundled up in bed at the Dursleys’ house on Privet Drive.

 _  
**tap-tap-tap! tap-tap-tap!**   
_

Whatever was tapping, it was at the window just next to him, between his bed and Ron’s, and it was a harder, louder sound than a person could make with their fingernails — if such a person could scale Gryffindor Tower to this height. He grudgingly started to drag himself up to see what it was.

Ron was ahead of him, and shuffled out of bed. “...Do you want in or something...?”

 _  
**tap-tap-tap!**   
_

Harry put on his glasses and pulled aside his bedcurtains just in time to feel a burst of winter air on his face as Ron opened the window. Two black birds flapped in the window and straight past Harry’s head; their wings flung stray snowflakes as they fluttered into the canopy of his bed.

Ron shut the window again. “ _Lumiere._ ” He stayed standing, but pulled Harry’s bedcurtains around himself as he lit the canopy-lantern to reveal the birds clinging to its wirework frame.

Harry blinked into the light for a moment before his eyes adjusted enough to see them. Two bright-eyed ravens looked back at him attentively; the lantern-light picked out a peacock sheen to their jet-black feathers. One of them carried a piece of parchment in its beak — a letter! The message wasn’t tied to the raven’s leg the way a post-owl would carry it, but took the form of a scroll tied with a leather thong, which the bird simply held in its beak. Harry reached for it, the raven dropped it into his hand, then the two of them fluttered out past him and back onto the windowsill.

Ron had just lifted the pane to let them fly out when Seamus rolled out of bed and came over to them. “What are you two up to over here?”

“Nothing,” Ron said, closing the window again. “Just wanted some fresh air.”

“Right you did,” he said skeptically. “Come on now, I saw some birds; heard them flapping, too.”

“It’s our top secret plan to destroy the Ministry,” Harry blurted out, more punch-drunk from the rude awakening than cautious.

“Right, so lay off before you know so much we have to kill you,” Ron said.

Seamus laughed. “Well, in that case, keep up the good work,” he said, and shuffled back to bed.

Once he was gone, Ron seated himself beside Harry, who slipped off the leather tie and unrolled the parchment. Both boys read it in silence.

 _“Dear Harry,_

 _“As you might guess, this is a letter from home. My Dear Friend is back from his ‘business trip’ and he was able to borrow some specially-trained letter carriers. The two you will just have seen are named Locke and Kant. I know that you’ll be home for Christmas soon, but I couldn’t resist going ahead and writing to you, and I’m sure you don’t want to be kept in the dark any longer than you have to, either. The Secret Thing is still safe (and still Secret, so don’t ask). My Friend and I, and Mr. W’s folks, and I think everyone you would know is still all right, but we have lost someone in the recent disappearances.”_

“Hestia Jones, I bet, like you said,” Ron whispered.

Harry shushed him. After Seamus looking in on them, he didn’t want to risk anything else getting out.

 _“...We’re doing what we can to look into that. My Sherlock is coming up short so far, but of course we all suspect Mr. V, and he’s not allowed to look too deeply into that.”_

“That’s a weird thing to call him.” Ron only breathed the words this time as he pointed to the “Mr. V” designation. Harry let it pass.

 _“As for myself, with My Friend back I’m feeling much better than I was for a time — my health is fine, please don’t worry about that, but alone in the house with The Help and The Decor isn’t my favorite place to be, and after a certain newspaper story I can’t put my nose out without having it hit by a rolled-up copy of the thing. I wish I could be there with you. I’m sure you’re making me proud, but I suppose I’m a little old to go back to school, so I’m just counting the days until you get home for the holiday and can tell me all about it._

 _“We have your Christmas present picked out, by the way. I think you’ll like it._

 _“I could go on forever but I don’t want to weigh our messengers down, and at any rate it’s not the same as having you here. I know I’m belaboring the point that I’m looking forward to you coming home for the holiday, but I’ve been missing you._

 _“Until then, good luck in your classes, and Don’t Get Caught._

 _“Love you and miss you, Snuffles B. Paterson_

 _“P. S.: If you need to contact me, tie a letter to a biscuit and leave it on the sill for the couriers.”_

By the end of the letter, Harry was wishing that Ron would show enough discretion to go back to bed, but no such luck.

“Sounds like he _has_ been alone in the house too much.”

“Look,” Harry sighed, “if this had been a letter from _your_ Mum, would you want _me_ picking on it?”

Ron kept his eyes on the parchment even as Harry turned to him, but he agreed. “No, I guess I wouldn’t. ‘Night, Harry,” he said, and went back to his bed, never meeting Harry’s eyes.

That gesture almost disturbed Harry more than the desperate tone of the letter’s affection, and between the two of them, he lay awake for some time after he had put out the light over his bed.

* * *

There was not a doubt in Harry’s mind that Seamus was on his side against Umbridge, even if he still didn’t seem to believe Harry’s story about Voldemort. In a certain way he would have trusted Seamus, but now before the next day was out the whole school seemed to have heard about the Ravens bringing Harry a letter at midnight, and why in the world did he have to repeat the crack about a secret plan to destroy the Ministry? Surely he knew by now that Umbridge couldn’t take that kind of joke.

With less than two weeks left until Holiday and his godfather’s safety at stake, Harry smuggled a biscuit from dinner and tied it to a quick note:

 _“Mr. Paterson - Someone saw the couriers, so better save them for emergencies. Looking forward to holiday!_

 _“~Your Sweepstakes Entrant”_

He couldn’t bring himself to write “do not send anymore mail” again, and the ravens’ cargo wasn’t in danger of being checked, so maybe if their visits were kept rare, that channel could remain open... As instructed, he left the biscuit and letter outside on the sill when he went to bed, and he lay awake until he heard beating wings at the window. He sprang up from bed, having left his wand to hand, and cast Lumos in time to see the two birds; one took his letter in its beak, the other took the biscuit in its claws, and they flew away into the night.

The next morning, Lee and Dean gave all the Gryffindors copies of the first Hogwarts Underground, Facsimilated onto blanked pages of Umbridge’s paper. “Kind of bare-bones this time around, but it seemed like the most important thing to say,” Dean explained as he gave Harry, Ron, and Hermione copies. “We need to get these out by the weekend, of course.”

That much was obvious given the contents of the little bulletin:

 _“Umbridge-itis getting you down?_

 _“We’ve all seen the rules, but what is she going to do when we’re out in the village? Meet us at the Other Pub. We’ll start making plans to take our school back!”_

Just those few sentences below the underground train image, but it was enough — and again in that Dictating-Quill script, so _someone_ in Gryffindor Tower must own one...

“The Hog’s Head?” Ron questioned. It was the “Other Pub” in Hogsmeade, which even the more daring students tended to avoid.

“Well, we figure we won’t run into any Ministry robes there,” Dean said. “Can you imagine Madam Umbridge in a place like that?”

“I guess not,” Ron agreed.

Harry frowned; he saw the point about the Ministry, but he _could_ imagine Death Eaters there, and it dawned on him that everyone was so concerned with Umbridge that they were forgetting the larger fight — if indeed _any_ of them believed him. Even he had been letting the Educational Emergency distract him from the fact that Voldemort was out there somewhere, apparently disappearing people at random... Then there was the realisation that he had already planned to meet Cho. His mind tried to chase in three directions and ended up badly muddled.

It was a bit late to object to the plan now, anyway, and he guiltily refrained from distributing the bulletin himself, not least because he couldn’t think of anyone to distribute it to. Ginny found Michael Corner to give him a copy of it and a kiss, which only made Harry more uncomfortable. How was it that he suddenly didn’t seem to know anyone? Ron and Hermione were being a bit remote and had their own firsthand copies anyway. He could give a copy to Cho, perhaps, but didn’t really want to — and besides, Umbridge had set her sights on him such that he would probably just make the fledgling resistance more of a target if he got too involved with it. That wasn’t exactly a comforting thought, but he settled on it and stayed quiet.

In the last half of the week, he muddled through another Potions lab and another class with Umbridge and Slinkhard, while Lee and company put together a Hogwarts Underground issue not for in-school consumption but to be spread around in the village, containing a manifesto of student grievances against the Educational Emergency regime. Hermione worked feverishly on a lengthy composition that Harry had thought might be homework — hopefully Arithmancy or Runes and thus not something he himself was forgetting — but that Saturday morning, she stuffed it all in an envelope addressed to Viktor Krum in Bulgaria and smuggled it in her schoolbag out to the village.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they went through the school’s winged-boar-topped gates, as if afraid Umbridge might have decided to lock them inside after all, but no, they arrived safely in Hogsmeade’s main street. There had been some worry too, that she might have the village crawling with Ministry operatives, that despite the Underground’s assumptions, she might have made ready to police the students even here, but her reach seemed to go no further than copies of the Emergency Measures pasted up outside the Owl-Post Office.

Nonetheless, Parvati dauntlessly went inside with a letter for her father, and when she came back out with the news that the clerks were scoffing at Umbridge’s rules, dozens of students, including Hermione with her letter for Krum, flooded in to follow her example. Ron split off in the direction of Honeydukes, leaving Harry behind on the street, but of course he had other plans.

He caught Dean in The Three Broomsticks passing out The Hogwarts Underground to the locals and asked where he might find Madam Puddifoot’s. The explanation that he’d never been there and was supposed to meet someone brought a round of indulgent laughter that made him blush, but Alicia Spinnet overheard and gave him a fair set of directions.

“...The street is so quiet, you might think you’re lost, but just look for the sign shaped like a teacup,” she said to wrap it all up.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, you,” one of the adult wizards stopped Dean as he started to move on to another table. “I’m looking at this... Intercepting an order for Healy’s salve and keeping the money? Lifting pages out of a test-prep course? Are you kids just fooling with us??”

“No! So help me, that stuff really happened,” Dean replied.

“To people I know,” Alicia added. “You want me to find them so they can tell you about it?”

Harry turned from the conversation and left the Three Broomsticks in search of Madam Puddifoot’s, but doing so made him feel strangely unsettled. _What’s wrong with me? I’m meeting Cho, I should be happy!_ But he couldn’t just wave away a tug of regret inside him. Dean and Alicia were back there standing up to Umbridge — fighting as best they knew how, even if it wasn’t against Voldemort. Even Hermione and the rest of the crowd at the Owl Post Office were doing their part, and now here he was, Harry Potter, going off to sip tea instead of helping them.

 _Well, every year before, it’s been me who was fighting and everyone else who wasn’t_ , he thought. _Don’t I deserve a break for a date with Cho? Besides, the way Umbridge is, they probably would be better off without me; I’d just get them all in more trouble..._ Telling himself that was enough to keep him on course toward Madam Puddifoot’s and Cho rather than The Hog’s Head and the resistance meeting, but it made that niggle inside him tighten, not go away. His thoughts rang more and more loudly as he followed Alicia’s prescribed twists and turns onto quieter streets. There were tracks of fresh footprints in the snow, so he thought some of his fellow students must have gone there ahead of him, but no one was here now, just echoes stamped in the whiteness that only made him feel more alone in their silence.

 _There’s no reason for me to go to the meeting_ , he thought, trying to coax himself on toward the teacup-sign that he could now see a little further down the winding street. _There’s not much I could really do for them... Sure, I was the one who saw Voldemort, but I didn’t really manage to do anything to him or set him back at all, did I? I even let them take my blood for that resurrection spell. I even let them..._ With Cho waiting just ahead, he couldn’t even bear to finish a thought about Cedric. _I couldn’t even chase off those Dementors. What does everybody need me for?_

He came to stand just under the wooden teacup painted with a rose and the Madam Puddifoot’s name, but his self-talk had the opposite of its intended effect. He stopped beneath the sign and froze there as if rooted to the ground, unable to take another step.

 _What am I doing here?_

He stood there for a long moment as the December breeze rubbed his cheeks and nudged the sign into motion, then finally a jingling bell on the door brought him back to himself. Cho was looking out at him, warm air and color radiating out from the doorway around her. She wore her silky hair loose over an attractively-patterned sweater and a long skirt, making Harry rather self-conscious about his own school uniform under his cloak, but she smiled brightly. “Did you have trouble finding it?”

“No, ah, not much...”

“Well, don’t stand out there in the cold; you found the right place,” she said, putting one dainty shoe out in the snow to take his arm and guide him inside. Cho unwound his scarf and hung it up for him on the coat-rack as he unbuttoned his cloak, and then she took that, too. He looked around at the place and found it very cosy, decorated in ivory and gold and pink, with rose motifs much in evidence and a crackling fireplace in peach-colored stone, leaving the seasonal holly and pointsettias looking rather tacked-on. Potted flowers sat in the deep, narrow sills of the front windows. The china was ivory-colored with gold trim and roses, just like on the sign outside. No more than a dozen tables were scattered around, each just the size for two, and of those that were occupied, only one was taken by two girls and one other by an older local couple. The rest each belonged to a matched pair of students, a boy and a girl — including, off in a corner, Draco and Pansy, but Harry just hastily looked away from them, hoping that if he pretended not to see Draco then Draco would pretend not to see him.

Now, too, the couples present included Harry and Cho, as she led him to a little table where a teapot sat steaming beside a basket of biscuits. Two cups were laid out, not across the table from each other but side-by-side — and thankfully facing away from Draco and Pansy’s corner. One of the cups was already full, and as Harry sat down beside the other one he noticed that even the tea was pink and the biscuits ivory heart shapes with pink rose motifs stamped onto them. He reached for the teapot, but Cho stopped him.

“Oh, no, please,” she said, exchanging her own cup for his empty one. “I like it a little sweet, but...”

She trailed off but without a hint of uncertainty, so Harry had to think that this was perfectly normal and took a sip. It was much oversweetened, but that was probably for the best; what he could taste of the tea itself was entirely too floral for him, so better to taste the sugar instead — and he couldn’t help but notice a hint of flavor on the rim, enough to confirm that Cho had indeed drunk from this cup before passing it to him.

By this time she had prepared another cup and switched back with him, but as she drank from the one she had lent, a smile in her eyes told him that he hadn’t done anything wrong by taking a sip, although he felt a bit awkward about it himself. Sampling from the fresh cup she had poured for him confirmed that the tea couldn’t stand on its own without the sugar, but he hardly dared to add more, lest it be an insulting gesture that Cho had prepared it wrong, even though she hadn’t asked what he liked...

Their gazes met, and Harry almost desperately let himself sink into the shining depths of Cho’s eyes where again he was awash in warmth, where he could see his echo in her mind, his own reflection handsome and heroic and charming — heavily sugared, because like the flower-tea, he wasn’t so palatable without it. For the first time some part of him resisted the spell of Cho’s eyes; he didn’t feel handsome or charming. He didn’t feel heroic, sitting here while his friends were elsewhere fighting Umbridge’s deathgrip on their school. That awkward feeling deep down was untouched: _What am I doing here?_

 _What am I supposed to do now?_ Even this question had grown thornier. Cho still smiled at him, but he feared that any tiny guesture could make that smile fall, would give away that he wasn’t enjoying himself wonderfully — _Why aren’t I, anyway? What’s wrong with me?_ He was half-afraid even to sip his tea lest it somehow throw off Cho’s finely-crafted cup-switching scheme, but then, could he wreck it also by not drinking when he was supposed to?

While munching as quietly as he could manage on a biscuit, he surreptitiously looked around the room for some examples of how he should act. The older couple were tucking biscuits into each other’s mouths. Harry discarded that and desperately kept looking; the next table he settled his eyes on, all the way across the room, was Draco and Pansy’s — but at the least he realised he had no need to worry about being noticed; Draco’s attention was fully engaged as he twirled a lock of Pansy’s hair around his finger and their faces met in a kiss.

Harry raised his eyes away from them — and saw a sprig of mistletoe above their heads. For the first time, he realised that ribbons had been hung from the rafters, dangling mistletoe over many of the patrons, and he turned back to he and Cho’s table and looked up. Sure enough, looking back down at him were the green leaves and ivory berries, bound with a pink ribbon bow.

“I was wondering when you’d notice,” Cho said. When he looked back down at her, her laughing eyes and smiling lips were wonderfully forgiving. She leaned closer by hardly an inch, letting her mouth draw inward and her eyelids lower just the tiniest bit, but for once, it was utterly clear what came next, and Harry leaned closer to her until their eyes closed and their faces touched. He didn’t know when to let go, and just trusted Cho to know, but she seemed to want it to last forever, and maybe he was supposed to be the one to...

Unthinkingly, he looked to her across the point of contact, searching for some idea of how this should go...

 _Cedric kissed harder. This isn’t the same..._

Harry’s jaw went slack; he pulled back from her, but when he was far enough away to see her eyes, they looked back at him in innocent confusion.

“Is something wrong?”

“No... No, it’s nothing...” That was a lie, but the truth would be impossible to admit.

Cho let her eyelids drift lower again, and again he understood the cue and leaned closer to her, but this time he could barely feel her face against his. All he could feel was the shadow of Cedric Diggory looking over his shoulder.

 _to be continued in...  
 **Chapter Twenty: Did You Just Want...?**_

* * *

 _Author’s Notes on Chapter Nineteen:_

For some reason, my favorite sentence from this chapter is this one: “November dribbled on like that, increasingly frigid, and turned gray and black without snowing.” I don’t know why, but that’s what sticks with me.

Once I got into it, I rather enjoyed doing the scene with Cho. I admit, I got a kick out of planting Draco and Pansy there, and I liked the line about “Cho’s finely-crafted cup-switching scheme,” which struck me funny but I think also captured the sense of awkwardness. And once again poor Harry ends a chapter in a puddle of angst...

The ravens may represent a bit of World-Builder’s disease (as I’ve invented and become rather attached to the place where Lupin got them), but the check-in with Sirius is worth something at least. I already struggled in the letter and foresee a challenge of Christmas holiday as showing him properly out of sorts and lonely (the word I’m looking for is “pathetic”) without taking it too far. And Harry again finds that having loving parents can be a mixed bag...

Just as a nit, too, while in both Hand-Me-Downs and Chapter 8 I mentioned Lupin’s hair being “tied back,” this is the first time I actually used the word ponytail — and I’ll admit the canon doesn’t support him having one very well. A big enough deal is made about Bill’s, it’s doubtful another man could have one and escape comment on it, but my mental image of Remus was much affected by a certain picture of him (Koge-Donbo’s version at Moonless Night, now defunct but you can find it in the Way Back Machine if you try hard enough), and I’m just not shaking that mental image now. Besides, if I was going to excise everything canon doesn’t support, this whole story would just be off the cards, wouldn’t it? ^_~;

Oh, and shortly after Sirius's letter, at about 6pm, November 30th, despite slightly relaxing the rules to work on a pre-existing story, I won NaNoWriMo.

...

NaNoWriMo 2005.

So you can tell just how totally I fell off my game after that, and with this chapter posted I’ll have cleared my backlog (I have Ch. 20 but it’s such a horrible cliffhanger I don’t want to post it until I at least have 21 too), so it’s back on indefinite hiatus... Sorry, everybody...


End file.
